Background: Early language skills are critical for later academic success. Lower socioeconomic status (SES) children tend to start school with limited language skills compared to advantaged peers. We test the hypothesis that this is due in part to differences in caregiver contingent talk during infancy (how often the caregiver talks about what is…

An emerging body of research examines language learning of young children from experiences with digital storybooks, but little is known about the ways in which specific components of digital storybooks, including interactive elements, may influence language learning. The purpose of the study was to examine the incidental word learning and story…

Research Findings: This study investigated the association between Mexican American maternal education and socioeconomic status (SES) and child vocabulary as mediated by parental reading beliefs, home literacy environment (HLE), and parent-child shared reading frequency. As part of a larger study, maternal reports of education level, SES, HLE, and…

(Purpose) The purpose of this study was to understand if inclusion of computer activities and videos for pre-K and kinder students, with opportunities to view these videos again at home, providing a repeated learning experience with language concepts and vocabulary, improved young students' early reading skill. (Methods) The study followed one…

A randomized control intervention study was conducted to evaluate the effects of the highly structured Heidelberg Parent-Based Language Intervention (HPLI). The outcomes of 43 children (n = 23 intervention, n = 20 control) who had been identified as late talkers during routine developmental check-ups carried out in pediatric practices at the age…

Novel word learning is reported to be problematic for children with severe language impairments (SLI). In this study, we tested electronic storybooks as a tool to support vocabulary acquisition in SLI children. In Experiment 1, 29 kindergarten SLI children heard four e-books each four times: (a) two stories were presented as video books with…

The Nuffield Early Language Intervention is designed to improve the spoken language ability of children during the transition from nursery to primary school. It is targeted at children with relatively poor spoken language skills. Three sessions per week are delivered to groups of two to four children starting in the final term of nursery and…