The impact of book reading in the early years on parent–child language interaction

Abstract

Early language development predicts later reading competence, but does reading to young children enhance the language interaction between them and their parents? Automatic assessment of language interaction now yields Adult Word Counts (AWC), Conversational Turn counts (CT) and Child Vocalization counts (CV). This study had 98 families return reading activity logs for a day coinciding with automatic language analysis, and of these 36 reported reading with their children aged 26-61 months on that day. Reading periods yielded much higher AWC and CT than non-reading periods, indicating a greater degree of parent-child language engagement and interaction during reading periods. Such differences were not evident in CV.AWC and CT were high during reading for both high and low education level mothers. Gender effects during reading were evident for AWC (but not CT or CV), indicating greater AWC with male children. These results have important implications for practical action by parents. wordsKeywords reading, language, interaction, mother, young children, effect, LENAThe impact of book reading in the early years on parent-child language interaction While it is well established that early language development predicts later reading ability, the converse argument (that reading can enhance language development) is less well researched. Accordingly, this study examines evidence for a component of such an argument -that parents' reading to and with their young children enhances the degree of language interaction between them relative to other times (which may in turn yield greater child language competence).Specifically, we examine the quantity of language interaction between parent and child in terms of Adult Word Count (AWC -number of words spoken by the adult), Conversational Turns (CT -number of mutually attentive interactions between child and parent), and Child Vocalization (CV -number of utterances by the child excluding noises) to determine whether these metrics are elevated when books are being read compared to other times. While previous studies used parental self-report of reading practices and/or standardized tests of language and early literacy, the present study used real-time recordings of parent-child language interactions and is the first of its kind.The quantity and quality of early language interaction have been found to have effects on subsequent child progress in school (Hart & Risley, 1995). Establishing that time spent reading in the early years improves early language interaction has important implications for practical action by parents. In this study, albeit with a small sample, language interaction between parents (particularly mothers) and young children (2-5 years) in the home was compared during book reading versus other times. Based on existing literature, our research hypothesis was that language interaction would be higher during book reading than during non-reading periods on the same day (irrespective of which parent interacted with the child). The study also examined LANGUAGE INTE...

Multiple Coordination Patterns in Infant and Adult Vocalizations

“…In addition to the three vocal coordination patterns that have been the foci of this study, for this section, we also included a conversational turn‐taking measure computed by the LENA system. The conversational turn‐taking measure computed by LENA is frequently used in the literature (Caskey, Stephens, Tucker, & Vohr, ; Gilkerson & Richards, ; Gilkerson, Richards, & Topping, ; Greenwood et al., ; Suskind et al., ; Warren et al., ) and is therefore an important measure to include when assessing independent associations with infant age. A conversational turn is identified when a sequence of speech‐related sound segments from an adult then an infant, or vice versa, occurs within 5 sec without an intervening non‐speech‐related segment or speech‐related segment from another adult or infant.…”

Parents’ early book reading to children: Relation to children's later language and literacy outcomes controlling for other parent language input

“…(), who compared vocabulary diversity in the text of common children's books to vocabulary diversity in parent speech in CHILDES. Another recent study using parent‐reported activity logs showed that book‐reading interactions include a higher number of conversational turns and parent word count compared to non‐book interactions (Gilkerson, Richards, & Topping, ). Our unique contribution is that because of the nature of our data, which consisted of naturalistic parent–child interactions, we also were able to examine parent language around book reading (e.g., extending the topic, describing the pictures), not just their reading of the text of the books.…”

Using a Digital Language Processor to Quantify the Auditory Environment and the Effect of Hearing Aids for Adults with Hearing Loss

“…This would also allow for the measurement of the number of conversational turns between the DLP wearer and other adults and the amount of speech produced by the DLP wearer and other adults in a conversation, which would help to assess relative social participation. These variables have provided important insights into children’s patterns of verbal behavior in natural settings (e.g., VanDam et al, 2012; Thiemann-Bourque et al, 2014; Gilkerson et al, 2015; Sosa, 2016). Optimizing the LENA algorithms for use with adult DLP wearers could provide researchers and clinicians with a better understanding of the auditory environments and communication patterns of adults, as well as the real-world effects of intervention on the lives of adults.…”

“…More importantly, the LENA system provides access to detailed second-by-second data of sound levels and auditory environment classification, which allows for in-depth data mining. LENA was designed for and has been used extensively to study the language-learning environments of children (e.g., VanDam et al, 2012; Thiemann-Bourque et al, 2014; Gilkerson et al, 2015; Sosa, 2016), but it has also been used with adults (Li et al, 2014). Specifically, Li et al asked 37 older adults (aged 64–91 yr) residing in a retirement community to wear a LENA DLP for one day.…”