A gesture training for low-income parents to improve child vocabulary development

项目摘要 为低收入父母提供手势训练，以提高儿童语言发展 社会经济地位（SES）一直与儿童的早期语言发展密切相关， 尤其是词汇的发展。平均而言，教育程度更高、子女更少的父母 在儿童早期，受教育程度较低的儿童的词汇技能和词汇增长速度更快， 父母双方（哈特& Risley，1995;霍夫，2003）。SES在儿童词汇方面的差异是显而易见的 早在蹒跚学步的几年，扩大，直到5岁，然后平稳，导致一个大的平均社会经济地位 幼儿园和一年级的词汇差距（Farkas & Beron，2004）。这些早期的差异已经很久了- 持久的影响，因为研究表明，SES差距在二，三，四年级阅读和 数学技能，可以用孩子们带到幼儿园的口头语言能力来解释 （达勒姆et.例如，2007年）。此外，对于目前的提案来说，最重要的是幼儿园的社会经济地位差距 词汇可以一直追溯到儿童早期的非语言（即手势）交流， 亲子互动具体来说，在14个月大的时候，来自高社会经济地位家庭的孩子会做手势， 比他们的低社会经济地位的同龄人，这种手势的使用与后来的词汇技能有关（Rowe & Goldin- Meadow）。此外，儿童手势的早期SES差异可以通过数量和质量来解释 父母的姿态。因此，到14个月大的时候，孩子们已经或多或少地学会了打手势 在亲子互动中，这种早期的非语言交流使他们的情绪更高或更低。 他们的词汇量在幼儿时期的增长轨迹（Rowe，Raudenbush & Goldin-Meadow，2012）。 本计画的目的是发展一个手势训练介入计画并进行试点测试 低收入的父母。重点是日常交际手势，主要是指。一个家 将在儿童9个月大时与父母一起制定和实施基于教育的干预措施。 将对家庭进行纵向随访，直至儿童18个月，并对家庭进行多次访问， 确定：1）是否有可能提高父母提供的指向手势的数量和质量， 言语儿童，2）这种干预是否会增加儿童的手势使用，以及3）这种干预是否 干预增加儿童的早期词汇发展。本试点研究的分析将比较 干预组（n=20）与对照组（n=20）比较，以确定干预是否影响 在结构化的自由游戏观察过程中，父母与孩子的沟通手势，以及 干预通过父母的交流输入影响儿童的手势或词汇发展。这项工作是 根据NICHD母亲和儿童研究中心的使命， 为旨在改善低社会经济地位家庭幼儿早期环境的政策提供信息， 可能有助于防止社会经济地位成就差距的实质化。 !

PROJECT SUMMARY A gesture training for low-income parents to improve child language development Socioeconomic status (SES) is consistently strongly related to children's early language development, particularly vocabulary development. On average, more educated and advantaged parents have children with greater vocabulary skills and faster vocabulary growth during early childhood than less educated and advantaged parents (Hart & Risley, 1995; Hoff, 2003). SES differences in children's vocabulary are evident as early as the toddler years, widen until age 5, and then level off, resulting in a large average SES vocabulary gap in kindergarten and first grade (Farkas & Beron, 2004). These early differences have long- lasting ramifications as research shows that the SES gap in second, third, and fourth grade reading and mathematics skills, can be explained by the oral language abilities children bring with them to kindergarten (Durham et. al., 2007). Further, and most important for the current proposal, the SES gap in kindergarten vocabulary can be traced all the way back to children's early nonverbal (i.e. gesture) communication during parent-child interactions. Specifically, at age 14 months, children from higher-SES families are gesturing more than their lower-SES peers, and this gesture use is related to later vocabulary skill (Rowe & Goldin- Meadow). Further, the early SES differences in child gesture can be explained by the quantity and quality of parent gesture. Thus, by 14 months of age, children are already socialized to gesture more or less during parent-child interactions and this early nonverbal communication sets them on a higher or lower trajectory in their vocabulary growth across early childhood (Rowe, Raudenbush & Goldin-Meadow, 2012). The purpose of this proposed project is to develop and pilot test a gesture training intervention program with low-income parents. The focus is on everyday communicative gestures, primarily pointing. A home- based educational intervention will be developed and implemented with parents at child age 9-months. Families will be followed longitudinally up to child age 18-months with several visits to the home to determine: 1) if it is possible to boost the quantity and quality of pointing gestures parents offer their pre- verbal children, 2) whether this intervention increases children's gesture use, and 3) whether this intervention increases children's early vocabulary development. Analyses for this pilot study will compare the intervention (n=20) group to a control group (n=20) to determine whether the intervention affects parental communicative gestures with children during structured free-play observations and whether the intervention affects child gesture or vocabulary development via parent communicative input. This work is in line with the mission of the NICHD Center for Research for Mothers and Children, will be instrumental in informing policies designed to improve the early environments of young children from low-SES families, and may potentially help prevent the SES achievement gap from substantiating. !