The purpose of this pilot study was to develop and evaluate the feasibility of an experiential teaching and learning initiative that trained undergraduate students studying speech-language pathology to serve as family navigators promoting social communication and language development in infants and toddlers from lower-income backgrounds. Three…

Purpose: Caregiver-implemented interventions are frequently used to support the early communication of young children with language impairment. Although there are numerous studies and meta-analyses supporting their use, there is a need to better understand the intervention approaches and identify potential gaps in the research base. With that…

Purpose: This study investigated the effects of enhanced milieu teaching (EMT) on caregiver implementation of language support strategies and child communication skills using a hybrid telepractice service delivery model. Method: Four caregivers and children with language delays aged 18-27 months participated in a multiple baseline across behaviors…

This article examines similarities and differences in Chilean teachers' competences, which were organized into profiles, and the associations of these profiles with children's language development. Teacher-child interactions were assessed when the children were 12 (n=99) and 30 months old (n=73), using the Adult Sensitivity Scale, the Evaluation…

Designed to spark an interchange of ideas, this book presents early childhood education as a nuanced, shifting, and complex field. Readers will bear witness to several decades of the lived experiences of influential leaders engaged in conversation about seven major topics: systems of early care and education, diversity and children's rights,…

This article critically interrogates the model of language that underpins early years policy and pedagogy. Our arguments emerge from an ethnographic study involving 2-year-olds attending a day care centre that had begun to hold a substantial proportion of its sessions outdoors. The resultant shift in pedagogy coincided with changes in the…

This study examined the empirical base for early childhood (birth to 8) coaching via a systematic mapping review of the relevant literature, including diverse research designs to represent the full breadth of published studies related to early childhood coaching. The systematic review yielded 374 unique studies published between 1987 and 2019 that…

Young children are conservative when extending novel verbs to novel exemplars. We investigated whether multiple, simultaneously presented exemplars would aid young children's verb learning, as well as the importance of exemplar variability. Three-year-olds were taught novel verbs, while viewing either one action-scene featuring a novel action…

Researchers examined whether a parent-implemented language intervention improved problem behaviors 1 year after intervention. Ninety-seven children with language delays (mean age at 12-month follow-up = 48.22 months) were randomized to receive Enhanced Milieu Teaching (EMT) language intervention or business as usual treatment. Twelve months after…

Learning a new language and culture may be particularly difficult for families in the United States supported by migrant workers, who typically work long hours and live a mobile lifestyle. The purpose of this phenomenological study is to describe the interaction patterns (i.e. use of the Spanish and English languages) among native-Spanish-speaking…

Programs serving infants and toddlers are expected to use child data to inform decisions about intervention services; however, few tools exist to support these efforts. The Making Online Decisions (MOD) system is an adaptive intervention that guides early educators' data-based intervention decision making for infants and toddlers at risk for…

Child-directed speech (CDS), which can help children learn new words, has been rigorously studied among infants and parents in home settings. Yet, far less is known about the CDS that teachers use in classrooms with toddlers and children's responses, an important question because many toddlers, particularly in high-need communities, attend…

Programs serving infants and toddlers are expected to use child data to inform decisions about intervention services; however, few tools exist to support these efforts. The Making Online Decisions (MOD) system is an adaptive intervention that guides early educators' data-based intervention decision making for infants and toddlers at risk for…

This study is about the role of elicited verbal imitation in toddler word learning. Forty-eight toddlers were taught eight nonwords linked to referents. During training, they were asked to imitate the nonwords. Naming of the referents was tested at three intervals (one minute later [uncued], five minutes, and 1-7 days later [cued]) and recognition…

The first years of life represent a unique window of opportunity for foreign language learning. However, key questions are: How much and what kind of foreign language exposure is needed to ignite learning? We conducted a foreign language (English) intervention in four public Infant Education Centers in Madrid, Spain. Intervention children (N =…