Developmental research confirms the importance of early parental language input for building children's vocabulary and language skills (Hart & Risley, 1995). While reading with a caregiver is a common way for language input to occur, the approaches parents utilize often fail to capitalize on techniques for improving language and pre-literacy…

We Learn Together is a 20-week, low-cost infant/toddler school-readiness intervention developed to provide instructional content and supportive tools for teachers to be more explicit and intentional in interactions with children to support early development. Short-term effects were established in a previously published real-world effectiveness…

Young children's linguistic and communicative abilities are foundational for their academic achievement and overall well-being. We present the positive outcomes of a brief tablet-based intervention aimed at teaching toddlers and preschoolers new word-object and letter-sound associations. We conducted two experiments, one involving toddlers…

Although language samples are child-friendly and well-suited for obtaining global measures of language production, structured protocols have the potential to elicit many different exemplars of language structures in a shorter amount of time. We created a structured elicitation protocol, the Sentence Diversity Priming Task (SDPT), to efficiently…

Purpose: This study examined the effect of Vocabulary Acquisition and Usage for Late Talkers (VAULT) treatment on toddlers' expressive vocabulary and phonology. Parent acceptability of VAULT treatment was also considered. Method: We used a nonconcurrent multiple baseline single case experimental design with three late talking toddlers aged 21-25…

In early 2017, Bright from the Start: Georgia Department of Early Care and Learning (DECAL) was awarded $2 million in funding from the governor of Georgia to be used for infant/toddler (I/T) language and literacy activities. DECAL used this funding to create Project LITTLE (Lifting Infants and Toddlers Through Language-rich Environments). Project…

This pilot study conducted an initial evaluation of the Center for Improving the Readiness of Children for Learning and Education (CIRCLE) Infant-Toddler Teacher Training program. The program is unique in three ways: 1) use of an online platform with courses that explain social-emotional, language, and literacy development in young children…

Developing strong language and communication skills in the first years of life provides young children with a foundation for a number of positive outcomes, including school readiness, early literacy skills, and self-regulation. High quality language supports in early childhood education programs are key to this development. Part of providing these…

In some areas of rural Africa, long-standing cultural traditions and beliefs may discourage parents from verbally engaging with their young children. This study assessed the effectiveness of a parenting program designed to encourage verbal engagement between caregivers and infants in Wolof-speaking villages in rural Senegal. Caregivers (n = 443)…

This paper uses meta-analytic techniques to estimate the separate effects of the starting age, program duration, and persistence of impacts of early childhood education programs on children's cognitive and achievement outcomes. It concentrates on studies published before the wide scale penetration of state-pre-K programs. Specifically, data are…

While most early childhood education and care (ECEC) programs taken to scale in the United States have served socially disadvantaged 3- to 5-years-olds, Norway scaled up universal ECEC from age 1. We investigated the consequences of Norway's universal ECEC scale-up for children's early language skills, exploiting variation in ECEC coverage across…

We examined the effects of our parent-child interaction focused bookmaking intervention with 89 families and their toddlers receiving early intervention services. Participating early intervention providers (N = 24) were assigned to either continue providing services as usual or participate in training to implement the bookmaking approach in their…

Globally, at least 200 million children younger than five years old are falling short of their potential for development and growth. There is some evidence that improvements to children's health, nutrition, and development outcomes can be made through programs that provide direct learning experiences to children and families; are targeted toward…

The purpose of this study was to develop a book sharing intervention to support the language development of infants and toddlers from socio-economically disadvantaged backgrounds. Low-income parents were engaged in a collaborative inquiry to develop "Little Talks." Parents were assigned to three small groups that independently…

The low rates of child literacy in South Africa are cause for considerable concern. Research from the developed world shows that parental sharing of picture books with infants and young children is beneficial for child language and cognitive development, as well as literacy skills. We conducted a pilot study to examine whether such benefits might…