Accelerating language development through picture book reading.

We experimentally assessed a 1-month, home-based intervention, designed to optimize parental reading of picture books to young children. Parents in the experimental group received instructions to increase their rates of open-ended questions, function/attribute questions, and expansions; to respond appropriately to children's attempts to answer these questions; and to decrease their frequency of straight reading and questions that could be answered by pointing. Control-group parents were instructed to read in their customary fashion. All families audiotaped their reading sessions at home. Analysis of these tapes demonstrated that the experimental group scored significantly higher than children in the control group on standardized posttests of expressive language ability. On the basis of analysis of audiotapes, children in the experimental group also had a higher mean length of utterance (MLU), a higher frequency of phrases, and a lower frequency of single words. Follow-up 9 months after the completion of treatment disclosed continued, although statistically diminished, differences between the two groups. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Accelerating language development through picture book reading: Replication and extension to a videotape training format.

G. J. Whitehurst et al (see record 1989-02401-001) taught mothers specific interactive techniques to use when reading picture books with their preschool-age children. This intervention program, called dialogic reading, produced substantial effects on preschool children's language development. However, the costs of one-on-one training limit the widespread use of dialogic reading techniques. In this study the authors aimed to replicate and extend the results of the original study of dialogic reading by developing and evaluating an inexpensive videotape training package for teaching dialogic reading techniques. Mothers were randomly assigned to receive no training, traditional direct training, or videotape training. Results supported the conclusions of Whitehurst et al: Dialogic reading had powerful effects on children's language skills and indicated that videotape training provided a cost-effective, standardized means of implementing the program. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

A picture book reading intervention in day care and home for children from low-income families.

The effects of an interactive book reading program were assessed with children from low-income families who attended subsidized day-care centers in New York. The children entered the program with language development in standard English vocabulary and expression that was about 10 mo behind chronological age on standardized tests. Children were pretested and assigned randomly within classrooms to 1 of 3 conditions: (1) a school plus home condition in which the children were read to by their teachers and their parents, (2) a school condition in which children were read to only by teachers, and (3) a control condition in which children engaged in play activities under the supervision of their teachers. Training of adult readers was based on a self-instructional video. The intervention lasted for 6 wks, at which point children were posttested on several standardized measures of language ability that had been used as pretests. These assessments were repeated at a 6 mo follow-up. Educationally and statistically significant effects of the reading intervention were obtained at posttest and follow-up on measures of expressive vocabulary. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Beyond the pages of a book: Interactive book reading and language development in preschool classrooms.

The effects of a book reading technique called interactive book reading on the language and literacy development of 4 yr olds from low-income families were evaluated. Teachers read books to children and reinforced the vocabulary in the books by presenting concrete objects that represented the words and by providing children with multiple opportunities to use the book-related words. The teachers also were trained to ask open-ended questions and to engage children in conversations about the book and activities. This provided children with opportunities to use language and learn vocabulary in a meaningful context. Children who were in the interactive book reading intervention group scored significantly better than children in the comparison group on Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test—III and other measures of receptive and expressive language. Book reading and related activities can promote the development of language and literacy skills in young children. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Effect of quality of day care environment on children's language development.

Tested the hypothesis that the amount of verbal interaction with caregivers would be a salient index of daycare center quality, in that it would be a particularly important determinant of children's language skill. 166 36–68 mo old children and their parents from 9 daycare centers participated in this study. Quality of the daycare environment, as assessed by observation and items from the Day Care Environment Inventory, was predictive of all 4 measures of intellectual and language development, which included the PPVT and Preschool Language Assessment Instrument, after controlling for family background and current center care experience. The importance of verbal interaction with caregivers was also demonstrated. Ss from centers with high levels of caregiver speech performed better on tests of language development than Ss from centers with a high level of peer speech. The predictive power of other environmental variables was also investigated. (42 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Infant development in day care.

Results from a study of 5-30 mo old day-care and home-care children matched age, N sex, and home background indicate that children experiencing high quality group day care differed little from home-reared children. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The efficacy of a voluntary summer book reading intervention for low-income Latino children from language minority families.

The effects of a voluntary summer reading intervention with and without a parent training component were evaluated with a sample of low-income Latino children from language minority families. During the last month of 4th grade, 370 children were pretested on a measure of reading comprehension and vocabulary and were randomly assigned to (a) a treatment group in which children received 10 self-selected books during summer vacation, (b) a family literacy group in which children received 10 self-selected books and were invited with their parents to attend 3 summer literacy events (2 hr in length), and (c) a control group. Although children in the treatment group and the family literacy group reported reading more books than the control group, there was no significant effect on reading comprehension and vocabulary. Recommendations for improving the efficacy of the intervention are discussed, including efforts to improve the match between reader ability and the readability of texts and the instructional goals of the family literacy events. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Developmental readiness: Accelerating leader development.

The development of leaders is a stated goal of most organizations, yet a validated framework and theory for leader development does not yet fully exist, nor is there a method for determining who is developmentally ready to engage in leader development. The authors of this article provide a framework for examining how one can accelerate leader development. They propose that leader developers first focus on assessing and then building the developmental readiness of individual leaders, as well as the developmental readiness of the organization as prerequisite steps for accelerating positive leader development. They identify and discuss 5 specific constructs comprising their initial modeling of developmental readiness (i.e., learning goal orientation, developmental efficacy, self-concept clarity, self-complexity, and metacognitive ability), as well as suggest methods for assessing and developing these 5 components. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Infant day care and infant-care leaves: A policy vacuum.

Current US policy supports neither high-quality infant daycare nor alternatives, such as paid leaves for infant care. Psychologists, on the basis of research showing the importance of quality care for infants, should support measures to protect daycare quality and to help families afford decent care. At the same time, there are compelling child and family health reasons for psychologists to support voluntary, part-paid, 6-mo leaves for infant care. For 4 wks preceding and 6 wks following childbirth, working mothers should be eligible for a fully paid maternity leave. The remainder of the leave would be made available on a part-paid basis to either parent in any combination they chose to facilitate the parent–infant relationship. (16 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Effects of day care on the development of cognitive abilities in 8-year-olds: A longitudinal study.

In G?teborg, Sweden, 146 children (72 girls) were enrolled in a longitudinal study when they averaged 16 mo of age. None of the children had experienced regular out-of-home care yet, but within 3 mo, 54 entered center care and 33 entered family day care. Quality of home and out-of-home care environments, child temperament, and the development of verbal abilities were assessed regularly during preschool years. When they were 8 yrs old (2nd grade), cognitive ability tests were administered to the 123 children (65 girls) still in the study. Tested ability was related to the number of months children had spent in center-based day care before 3.5 yrs of age. Child care quality predicted cognitive abilities among children who had spent at least 36 mo in out-of-home care during their preschool years. Both tested and rated cognitive abilities in 2nd grade were related to earlier measures of verbal ability and to paternal involvement during preschool years. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Individual differences in language development: Implications for development and language.

Reviews literature on differences in characteristics of language development. Some children have been found to emphasize single words, simple productive rules for combining words, nouns and noun phrases, and referential functions; others use whole phrases and formulas, pronouns, compressed sentences, and expressive or social functions. The evidence for 2 styles of acquisition and their continuity over time is examined. Explanations in terms of hemispheric functions, cognitive maturation, cognitive style, and environmental context are considered, and an explanation in terms of the interaction of individual and environment in different functional contexts is suggested. Implications for development and the mastery of complex systems are discussed. (51 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Disentangling early language development: Modeling lexical and grammatical acquisition using and extension of case-study methodology.

The early lexical and grammatical development of 1 male child is examined with growth curves and dynamic-systems modeling procedures. Lexical development described a pattern of logistic growth (R2?=?.98). Lexical and plural development shared the following characteristics: Plural growth began only after a threshold was reached in vocabulary size; lexical growth slowed as plural growth increased. As plural use reached full mastery, lexical growth began again to increase. It was hypothesized that a precursor model (P. van Geert, 1991 ) would fit these data. Subsequent testing indicated that the precursor model, modified to incorporate brief yet intensive plural growth, provided a suitable fit. The value of the modified precursor model for the explication of processes implicated in language development is discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Development of adolescent reading comprehension in language 1 and language 2: A longitudinal analysis of constituent components.

This study investigated the relationship between reading comprehension development of 389 adolescents in their dominant language (Language 1 [L1], Dutch) and a foreign language (Language 2 [L2], English). In each consecutive year from Grades 8 through 10, a number of measurements were taken. Students' reading comprehension, their linguistic knowledge (vocabulary and grammar knowledge) and processing efficiency (speed of word recognition and sentence comprehension) in both languages, and their metacognitive knowledge about reading were assessed. The relative strengths of the effects of these components of reading were analyzed to distinguish among 3 hypotheses about the relationship between L1 and L2 reading comprehension: the transfer hypothesis, the threshold hypothesis, and the processing efficiency hypothesis. The transfer hypothesis predicts a strong relationship between L1 and L2 reading comprehension and a strong effect of metacognitive knowledge on L2 reading comprehension, whereas the threshold and processing efficiency hypotheses predict a more important role of language-specific knowledge and processing skills. Results support the transfer hypothesis, although language-specific knowledge and fluency also contribute to L2 reading performance. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

A picture is not always worth a thousand words: Pictures as distractors in reading.

Conducted 2 studies with a total of 32 2nd graders and 66 3rd graders to examine the influence of pictures in the periphery on children's speed and accuracy of reading. In both studies, Ss were required to read sets of words under each of 3 conditions: with no pictures, with related pictures, and with unrelated pictures. The 2 studies differed in the age of the Ss (2nd vs 3rd graders) and in the location of the pictures (behind vs above the words). In both studies, the results consistently show the following: (a) The words were read more slowly whenever pictures were present. (b) Unrelated pictures produced more interference than related pictures. (c) The magnitude of both of these effects was inversely related to reading ability. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Oral language and reading: Reply to Bracken (2005).

Early language competence in preschool relates both directly and indirectly to elementary school reading in both 1st and 3rd grades. Further, comprehensive language skills are more strongly related to early reading than are vocabulary scores alone. In response to a challenge by S. A. Bracken (2005), the current article reaffirms the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development Early Child Care Research Network's (see record 2005-02477-013) findings. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

"Review of Reading disabilities: The interaction of reading, language, and neuropsychological deficits": Comment on book review.

The book review by M. L. Simner and S. J. Lupker entitled Reading disabilities: The interaction of reading, language, and neuropsychological deficits (see record 2007-03865-001) by Donald G. Doehring, Ronald L. Trites, P. G. Patel, and Christina A. M. Fiedorowicz was generally characterized by a lack of appreciation of the complexities involved in reading disabilities research. The review reflected a poor understanding of the theoretical framework, and many comments were simply a reiteration of problematic areas the authors themselves discussed in the book. Further, the reviewers misinterpreted several issues. The main focus of the book was to present a review of the literature with respect to the development of the subgroup concept in reading disabilities, and specifically to present the data for three subtypes defined by Doehring and his colleagues. Another issue the reviewers address as a major concern is the validity of the subtypes. The last main issue of concern expressed by the reviewers involves the usefulness of subtyping as a means of understanding reading disabilities. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Oral language and code-related precursors to reading: Evidence from a longitudinal structural model.

This study examined code-related and oral language precursors to reading in a longitudinal study of 626 children from preschool through 4th grade. Code-related precursors, including print concepts and phonological awareness, and oral language were assessed in preschool and kindergarten. Reading accuracy and reading comprehension skills were examined in 1st through 4th grades. Results demonstrated that (a) the relationship between code-related precursors and oral language is strong during preschool; (b) there is a high degree of continuity over time of both code-related and oral language abilities; (c) during early elementary school, reading ability is predominantly determined by the level of print knowledge and phonological awareness a child brings from kindergarten; and (d) in later elementary school, reading accuracy and reading comprehension appear to be 2 separate abilities that are influenced by different sets of skills. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Shared book reading: When and how questions affect young children's word learning.

Shared book reading, and the conversation that accompanies it, can facilitate young children's vocabulary growth. To identify the features of extratextual questions that help 3-year-olds learn unfamiliar words during shared book reading, two experiments explored the impact of cognitive demand level, placement, and an approximation to scaffolding. Asking questions about target words improved children's comprehension and production of word–referent associations, and children with larger vocabularies learned more than children with smaller vocabularies. Neither the demand level nor placement of questions differentially affected word learning. However, an approximation to scaffolding, in which adults asked low demand questions when words first appeared and high demand questions later, did facilitate children's deeper understanding of word meanings as assessed with a definition task. These results are unique in experimentally demonstrating the value for word learning of shifting from less to more challenging input over time. Discussion focuses on why a scaffolding-like procedure improves children's acquisition of elaborated word meanings. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Adult day care: Psychological practice and evaluation.

The unnecessary institutionalization of frail adults most often occurs when emotional factors exhaust the relationship between the caretaker and the frail adult. 14 60–93 yr olds with diagnoses of depression, chronic schizophrenia, or organic brain syndrome participated in a program that attempted to remediate depression and enrich affective involvement with caretakers. The program met twice weekly for 6 hrs and provided an intervention structured around familylike relationships, group psychotherapy, and task activity. Salient themes for the group were family relations, fear of institutionalization, and grief. Analysis of pre- and posttest scores on the Life Satisfaction Index (Form A), Mental Status Questionnaire, and the Self-Rating Depression Scale showed a reduction in depression, improved life satisfaction, increased knowledge of community resources, and a broader range of community activities. The role of psychology in adult daycare and the usefulness of linking evaluation to service delivery are discussed. (28 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Problems with picture perception: A reply to Rosinski.

Maintains that R. R. Rosinski's (see record 1977-20263-001) reply to the present author's (see record 1975-00215-001) review of picture perception assumes a degree of knowledge of stimulus information and variables, which influence picture perception, that far exceeds that current in the field. It is argued that Rosinski forecloses on further specification of optical information, confuses formal and perceptual equivalence, narrows the original definition of compensation, ignores the problem of information-preserving misprojections, mistakenly identifies knowledge with perception, and fails to consider the specified set of assumptions that underlies J. J. Gibson's (1950) theory of optical information. It is suggested that such problems arise from an overextension of early work, which fails to take note of the continuing development of the theory. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)