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The Harvard Family Research Project separated from the Harvard Graduate School of Education to become the Global Family Research Project as of January 1, 2017. It is no longer affiliated with Harvard University.
March 15, 2012 The Effects of a Responsive Parenting Intervention on Parent–Child Interactions during Shared Book ReadingSusan Landry, Karen E. Smith, Paul R. Swank, Tricia Zucker, April D. Crawford, & Emily Solari |
About Family Involvement Research Digests
Harvard Family Research Project's (HFRP) Family Involvement Research Digests summarize research written and published by non-HFRP authors and/or written by HFRP authors but published by organizations other than HFRP. To access the full research publication summarized in this digest, please see the citation below. For help citing this article, click here.
Introduction
Responsive parenting is the use of warm and accepting behaviors to respond to children’s needs and signals. This type of parenting is critically important to young children’s development: When parents use these behaviors, a child experiences acceptance of his or her uniqueness. In turn, this encourages a child to continue to communicate his or her needs and interests and to engage in learning interactions. The support associated with responsiveness helps children internalize what they learn in interactions with their caregivers and generalize it to new experiences.
Interventions helping parents learn responsive behaviors have shown that increases in responsiveness result in their children demonstrating better problem-solving, language, and social skills (Landry, Smith, Swank, & Guttentag, 2008), as well as improved emotional skills (Bakermans-Kranenburg, Van IJzendoorn, & Juffer, 2003) and behavioral development (Van Zeijl et al., 2006).
Our Study
Our study is unique given that, prior to our project, the skills that children develop during shared book-reading activities had yet to be examined in relation to responsive parenting interventions. We examined whether coaching mothers to use a range of responsive behaviors in everyday activities (e.g., feeding, dressing, playing) would lead the mothers to generalize their use of these behaviors during shared book-reading activities and, in turn, enhance their children’s engagement and language.
Shared book reading, the practice of an adult and child reading and exploring a book together, is important for promoting oral language and emergent literacy. It is also associated with reading achievement in first grade (Lesemen & de Jong, 1998). Studies have examined the effectiveness of targeted shared reading interventions to teach parents to use techniques that encourage young children to talk about illustrations and the book as a whole (e.g., Arnold, Lonigan, Whitehurst, & Epstein, 1994). These interventions had small to moderate positive effects on children’s language, particularly for children at low risk for literacy problems (Mol, Bus, de Jong, & Smeets, 2008).
The study described in this digest included approximately 166 mothers and their young children who were expected to be at high risk for literacy problems, as they were from low socioeconomic backgrounds where daily shared reading was less likely to occur (Federal Interagency Forum on Child and Family Statistics, 2009). Half of the families also had a child born prematurely with a very low birth weight (VLBW); premature and VLBW children are often more likely to experience difficulty with learning due to problems in engaging and taking initiative (Garner, Landry, & Richardson, 1991) and to have more cognitive and academic problems in school (Taylor, Klein, Minich, & Hack, 2000).
PALS The Play and Learning Strategies (PALS) curriculum was designed as a preventive intervention program to strengthen the bond between parent and child and stimulate early language, cognitive, and social development. The curriculum, which is offered in 10- and 12-week sessions, uses videotaped examples of real mothers and children to demonstrate different topics and allow mothers to critique these examples before practicing new skills with their own children. For more information, visit http://www.childrenslearninginstitute.org/our-programs/program-overview/PALS/default.html. |
The mothers were assigned randomly to receive the Play and Learning Strategies (PALS) home coaching program either (a) during their child’s first year of life (approximately 10 weekly sessions), (b) when their child was a toddler/preschooler (12 sessions), or (c) during both periods of their child’s development. About one quarter of the families in the study did not receive PALS but did have home visits from trained coaches where they were given information about how their child was developing.
The mothers in the PALS program viewed and discussed videos of other mothers (with similar socioeconomic backgrounds and/or ethnicities) using responsive behaviors (e.g., responding to a child’s signals, building on a child’s interests, using rich language) in everyday activities. Mothers were then videotaped trying the behaviors with their children and were asked to self-reflect about their own behaviors and their children’s responses with the PALS coach.
Results
The following findings provide support for PALS and other interventions targeting global responsiveness behaviors.
Recommendations for Practice
This content is summarized from Landry, S. H., Smith, K. E., Swank, P. R., Zucker, T., Crawford, A. D., & Solari, E. F. (in press). The effects of a responsive parenting intervention on parent–child interactions during shared book reading. Developmental Psychology. doi: 10.1037/a0026400
Susan H. Landry Karen E. Smith Paul R. Swank Tricia Zucker April D. Crawford Emily Solari
Department of Pediatrics
Children’s Learning Institute
University of Texas Health Science Center – Houston
Houston, TX 77030
Susan.Landry@uth.tmc.edu
University of Texas Medical Branch Galveston
Galveston, TX
Karen E. Smith
ksmith@utmb.edu
Department of Pediatrics
Children’s Learning Institute
University of Texas Health Science Center – Houston
Houston, TX 77030
Paul.R.Swank@uth.tmc.edu
Department of Pediatrics
Children’s Learning Institute
University of Texas Health Science Center – Houston
Houston, TX 77030
Tricia.Zucker@uth.tmc.edu
Department of Pediatrics
Children’s Learning Institute
University of Texas Health Science Center – Houston
Houston, TX 77030
April.Crawford@uth.tmc.edu
Department of Pediatrics
Children’s Learning Institute
University of Texas Health Science Center – Houston
Houston, TX 77030
Arnold, D. H., Lonigan, C. J., Whitehurst, G. J., & Epstein, J. N. (1994). Accelerating language development through picture book reading: Replication and extension to a videotape training format. Journal of Educational Psychology, 86(2), 235–243. doi: 10.1037/0022-0663.86.2.235
Bakermans-Kranenburg, M. J., van IJzendoorn, M. H., & Juffer, F. (2003). Less is more: Meta-analyses of sensitivity and attachment interventions in early childhood. Psychological Bulletin, 129(2), 195–215. doi:10.1037/0033-2909.129.2.195
Federal Interagency Forum on Child and Family Statistics. (2009). America’s children: Key national indicators of well-being, 2009. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office.
Garner, P., Landry, S. H., & Richardson, M. (1991). The development of joint attention skills in very-low-birth-weight infants across the first two years. Infant Behavior and Development, 14(4), 489–495. doi: 10.1016/0163-6383(91)90035-Q
Landry, S. H., Smith, K. E., Swank, P. R., & Guttentag, C. (2008). A responsive parenting intervention: The optimal timing across early childhood for impacting maternal behaviors and child outcomes. Developmental Psychology, 44(5), 1335–1353. doi: 10.1037/a0013030
Leseman, P. P. M., & de Jong, P. F. (1998). Home literacy: Opportunity, instruction, cooperation, and social-emotional quality predicting early reading achievement. Reading Research Quarterly, 33(3), 294-318. doi: 10.1598/RRQ.33.3.3
Mol, S. E., Bus, A. G., de Jong, M. T., & Smeets, D. J. H. (2008). Added value of dialogic parent-child book readings: A meta-analysis. Early Education and Development, 19(1), 7–26.
Taylor, H. G., Klein, N., Minich, N. M., & Hack, M. (2000). Middle-school-age outcomes in children with very low birthweight. Child Development, 71(6), 1495–1511. doi:10.1111/1467-8624.00242
Van Zeijl, J., Mesman, J., Van IJzendoorn, M. H., Bakersman-Kranenburg, M. J., & Juffer, F. (2006). Attachment-based intervention for enhancing sensitive discipline in mothers of 1- to 3-year-old children at risk for externalizing behavior problems: A randomized controlled trial. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 74(6), 994–1005.