How can we help caregivers teach new words to their children?

Children with Developmental Language Disorder (DLD) are slower to learn new words than their peers, placing them at risk for school failure. Book reading is an effective way to teach new words to children with DLD and potentially can be used to meet the pressing need for continual word learning in this group. Specifically, a program that trains caregivers (e.g., parents) to teach new words through book reading and provides a monthly set of books and teaching materials has the potential to be cost-effective and have far-reaching benefits: The caregiver can regularly teach their child new words every day in their own home, supporting their child's success in school. Our long-term goal is to develop an effective caregiver-administered book reading treatment for children with DLD that can be used by a variety of community partners (e.g., libraries, schools).

Although book reading treatments have been studied extensively, the focus has been on how to support child word learning. Little attention has been paid to supporting caregivers in doing the treatment. The few studies that have examined how well caregivers do the treatment suggest that most current programs may not be realistic for many caregivers or do not provide enough support to the caregiver to be successful. In other words, past efforts have not considered the difficulties of doing a book reading program in the real world.

This preliminary clinical trial, supported by NIDCD, will develop and test a caregiver-administered book reading treatment for pre-kindergarten children at-risk for DLD. This research advances our understanding of what aspects of book reading treatment are the most difficult for caregivers to implement. Knowing what the difficulties are will help us design a more realistic book reading program and/or provide better support to caregivers to successfully do a book reading program with their child.