Dialogic Book-Sharing and It's Impact to Parental Language and Behaviour

Abstract

Language development is very impactful for long-term well-being, but it can be difficult to access the necessary support for children’s language development. However, parents are very influential for their child’s language development, therefore a parental intervention which improves parent's skills to promote their child's language development could be useful. Dialogic book-sharing improves parents’ book-sharing skills, which increases children’s expressive language development and, therefore is a useful intervention to promote child language development. This thesis aims to assess what impact Books Together, a dialogic book-sharing intervention, has on parental language and book-sharing behaviour when delivered in-person and online.
Method: Books Together was delivered online, through non-NHS parental services and primary schools, and the in-person programme was delivered through schools. To assess whether Books Together may influence parental book-sharing quality or language, pre- and post-intervention observations were taken of parent-child dyads book-sharing together (In-person, N = 15; Online N = 17). These were coded for quantity of parental speech, turn-taking, features of attachment, and book-sharing behaviour.
Results: Books Together improved parental book-sharing behaviour, sensitivity and reciprocity, both in-person and online. However, the in-person delivery had better engagement and reach. Books Together did not impact parental quantity of speech during book-sharing. Books Together appears to impact parental behaviour, and attachment independently. Therefore, the online intervention was not feasible as it did not target the intended population and more research needs to be directed towards measurement building to improve the soundness of results in dialogic book-sharing research.

Date of Award	16 Aug 2024
Original language	English
Awarding Institution	Bangor University
Sponsors	Knowledge Economy Skills Scholarships (KESS 2)
Supervisor	Judy Hutchings (Supervisor) & Margiad Williams (Supervisor)