Parent-child book reading as an intervention technique for young children with language delays

The effect of instructing parents of children with language delays in effective joint book-reading techniques was compared with language facilitation through more general conversational instruction. Thirty-three children, 3 to 6 years of age, and their mothers participated. Parents receiving a version of Whitehurst's Dialogic Reading Training Program (Whitehurst et al., 1988) increased their use of what/who questions, open-ended questions, imitation, and expansions more than did parents receiving conversational language training. More modest effects were also found for the children, primarily in an increased rate of verbal responses to questions, increased number of different words, and increased Mean Length of Utterance. Parents whose behavior changed following the instruction were more likely to have had children whose language changed, a finding suggesting that the program affects children's development. In addition, correlations between children's pretest level and their change as a result of the treatment suggested that children learn different things from joint book reading at different points in development. On the whole, the results of this investigation of book-reading training suggest that it has considerable potential for facilitating language development with children with language delays, but that stronger interventions, monitored over a longer period of time, are needed.