Beacon Excellence in Communication Promotion

ABSTRACT

Language is the most commonly identified area of developmental delay for young children, and yet successful language development is probably the most important area for later academic and social development. Positive child language outcomes result from a combination of the learning opportunities the child experiences in his/her natural environment and his/her biological characteristics. Our project seeks to identify the degree to which the amount and types of experiences infants and toddlers have in their natural environment are related to positive communication and language outcomes.  Past research has focused primarily on analyzing relationships between the quality of the language features of early parent-child interactions and language development, demonstrating that optimal outcomes are associated with environments that offer many and varied opportunities to learn through interactions with responsive caregivers. This project will extend past research by providing a more complete picture of the child’s total and cumulative language experience, including the amount and type of learning opportunities the child experiences in child care and the amount and type of learning pportunities the child experiences at home. This information will then be used to develop interventions and improve caregiving practices for infants and toddlers in early childhood programs.

Population/Setting: This project focuses on the early intervention and caregiving staff, and infants and toddlers with and without special needs and their families from diverse economic backgrounds. The research activities take place in early childhood centers and in homes. Presently, 50 infants and toddlers between 6 - 36 months and their families participate.
In addition, the early childhood caregiving staff from 16 centers located in the Greater Kansas City Metropolitan area and Lawrence participate in this project.

Key Questions: Questions about infants' and toddlers' communication and language experience include:

• Are the same language promoting practices identified in parent-child research producing positive language
  outcomes in group child care settings?
• To what degree are caregivers using practices that are known to decelerate the language-learning of
  infants and young children?
• What role does the child's peers play in supporting language development?
• How does caregiver education, experience and training levels impact their use of language-promoting practices?

Potential for Impact on Practice: Benefits of this longitudinal project include, (a) the syntheses of knowledge regarding those factors in early childhood programs that contribute to exemplary language gains of young children, (b) the development and validation of interventions based on caregiver practices found to promote the communication and language of infants and toddlers with and without disabilities in early childhood programs and (c) the broad dissemination of results to parents, child care providers and researchers. A series of small scale studies are presently being planned in which we will validate
those caregiving practices that have been found to be most highly associated with exemplary communication and language outcomes.

Where to get more information:

Dale Walker, Ph.D., Director & Deborah Linebarger, Ph.D., Coordinator

Email: Walker or Linebarger

The Graduate Research Staff on this project includes:

Kathy Bigelow, Cathy Small, Sanna Harjusola-Webb, John Powell, and Stacie Kirk