The Benefits of Early Book Sharing (BEBS) for child cognitive and socio-emotional development in South Africa: study protocol for a randomised controlled trial

Abstract

BackgroundChildren in low and middle-income countries (LMICs) are at risk for problems in their cognitive, social and behavioural development. Factors such as a lack of cognitive stimulation, harsh parenting practices, and severe and persistent aggression in early childhood are central to the genesis of these problems. Interventions that target the intersection between early childhood development, parenting, and early violence prevention are required in order to meaningfully address these problems.MethodsWe are conducting a randomised controlled trial to evaluate a parenting intervention for caregivers of children aged between 23 and 27 months, designed to promote child cognitive and socioemotional development in Khayelitsha, a low-income peri-urban township in South Africa. Families are randomly allocated to a book-sharing intervention group or to a wait-list control group. In the intervention, we train caregivers in supportive book-sharing with young children. Training is carried out in small groups over a period of 8 weeks. Data are collected at baseline, post intervention and at 6 months post intervention. In addition to targeting child cognitive development, the intervention aims to improve child socioemotional functioning.DiscussionThe Benefits of Early Book Sharing (BEBS) trial aims to evaluate the impact of an early parenting intervention on several key risk factors for the development of violence, including aspects of parenting and child cognition, prosocial behaviour, aggression, and socioemotional functioning. The study is being carried out in a LMIC where violence constitutes a major social and health burden. Since the intervention is brief and, with modest levels of training, readily deliverable in LMIC contexts, a demonstration that it is of benefit to both child cognitive and socioemotional development would be of significance.Trial registrationThe BEBS trial is registered on the International Standard Randomised Controlled Trial Number database, registration number ISRCTN71109104. Registered on 9 February 2016. This is version 1 of the protocol for the BEBS trial.Electronic supplementary materialThe online version of this article (doi:10.1186/s13063-017-1790-1) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

The impact of early-years provision in Children’s Centres (EPICC) on child cognitive and socio-emotional development: study protocol for a randomised controlled trial

“…Since the intervention is brief and readily deliverable with modest levels of training, demonstration of benefit to child cognitive and socio-emotional development would be important. This study is similar in its methodology to a dialogical book-sharing trial currently being conducted in a poor community in South Africa [ 46 ].…”

Book‐Sharing for Parenting and Child Development in South Africa: A Randomized Controlled Trial

“…The Consolidated Standards of Reporting Trials (CONSORT) were followed in preparing this paper. The trial protocol was pre-registered and the protocol was published (Dowdall et al, 2017).…”

Early literacy materials and teacher practices in preschool classrooms

“…The reason for this may be related to preschool classrooms being too crowded as well as teachers' concerns about classroom management in these classrooms. The lack of utilising interactive book reading as an early literacy instructional technique runs contrary to a substantial amount of research which recommends interactive book reading be used for reading activities with children because it leads to the highest level of literacy gains in the most efficient method of book reading; especially with preschool-age children (Dowdall et al, 2017). In addition, Ergül, Akoğlu, Sarıca, Tufan, and Karaman (2015) evaluate book reading practices within preschool classrooms in the context of interactive book reading and the results are like the findings of this current research.…”

“…For language skills, examples of activities that can be carried out include interactive book reading practice which makes a huge contribution to children's language development, new vocabulary acquisition, especially to their early literacy skills development (Dowdall, Cooper, Tomlinson, Skeen, Gardner & Murray, 2017), speaking and listening activities, play involving new vocabulary learning, puzzles, drama or drawing picture related to vocabulary, story-building studies from pictures, and story completion activities. In a high-quality preschool classroom, there should be books that differ from simple to complex, both descriptive and narrative texts, writings about the current classroom themes, rhyming texts, alphabet books and pop-up books (Justice, 2006).…”

“…Dil becerileri için gerçekleştirilebilecek aktivitelere, çocukların dil ve özellikle erken okuryazarlık becerilerinin gelişimine ve yeni kelime edinimine büyük katkı sağlayan etkileşimli kitap okuma uygulaması (Dowdall, Cooper, Tomlinson, Skeen, Gardner & Murray, 2017), konuşma ve dinleme aktiviteleri, yeni kelime öğrenimini içeren oyunlar, kelime dağarcığıyla ilgili bulmacalar, drama, kelime ile ilgili resim çizimi, resimlerden hikâye oluşturma çalışmaları ve hikâye tamamlama etkinlikleri örnek olarak verilebilir. Yüksek kaliteli bir okul öncesi sınıfında, basitten karmaşığa farklılık gösteren kitaplar, hem tanımlayıcı hem de öyküleyici metinler, mevcut sınıf temaları hakkında yazılar, kafiyeli metinler, alfabe kitapları ve üç boyutlu kitaplar olmalıdır (Justice, 2006).…”