Assessing Quality Features of Parental Language Used With Toddlers Across Wales

1. Assessing Quality Features of Parental Language Used With Toddlers Across Wales Presented by: Nicole Gridley Supervisors: Judy Hutchings Tracey Bywater Christopher Whitaker

2. Overview • Background • Language Development • Language & Poverty • Wales & Poverty • 3 Objectives of the PhD • Methods for Study 1 • Preliminary Results for Study 1

3. News Headlines

4. Learning Language 3. Output 4. Labeled Praise Green! I recognise this colour. Green! Well done. Clever boy! 2. Processing What colour are you using now? • Input

5. Language Development Timeline 4/5 Months: Babbling consists of single consonant & vowel i.e. da/ba 3 Months: Babbling begins Startled at loud noises 7/8 Months: Stringing sounds together into longer chains i.e. dadada 10 Months: Strings together different syllables i.e. damagaba 2 Months: Cooing 12 Months First word use 18 Months: Understands questions 24 Months: Words can be combined into 2 & 3 word phrases Understands approx 300 words can say 40 words. 36 Months: Understands 900 words can speak 200 words

6. Language Proficiency • Benefits of language proficiency: • Academic attainment • Employment • Less likely to develop socially disruptive behaviour

7. Environmental Factors • Inadequate Stimulation • Emotional Problems • Inadequate Opportunities for Child to Communicate

8. Poverty News Headlines

9. Poverty Evidence to suggest children living in poverty are at an increased risk of: • Behavioural problems • Developmental delays • Social & Emotional incompetency • Language delays

10. Language & Poverty • Hart & Risley (1995) – High SES v’s Low SES High SES parents directed11.000 utterances p/hr to their children comparative to 700 utterances p/hr for low SES parents • Stein, et al. (2008) • High SES predictor of low maternal depression rates, higher quality care giving & higher child language scores at 10 months • Care giving style at 10 & 36 months predicted language scores at 36 months • Noel, Peterson & Jesso (2008) – Stress/ low-SES & Language Development • Parenting stress = high child emotion = low vocabulary scores & narrative length

11. Poverty in Wales • Pockets of severe deprivation highlighted across Wales • 32% of children living below the 60% median income level (Child Poverty Strategy for Wales, Feb, 2011) • Welsh Government Initiative • Head Start/ Sure Start/ Flying Start • Areas highlighted as needing additional resources • £44 million invested over first two years in targeted Flying Start areas from 2007 (£2000 per child) • Access to free literacy • Additional Health Visitor visits • Access to parent & baby groups A further £55 million to be invested in Flying Start from 2012

12. Objective of the PhD • Compare the frequency of quality features used within parental language in low and high SES families • Measure changes in the frequency of quality features within a Flying Start population who received a Parenting intervention • Compare these results to a non-Flying Start sample & a Flying Start control sample • Assess potential mediators of the occurrence of quality features within parental language on children’s overall developmental outcomes & language outcomes

13. Stage 1 – Baseline Assessment

14. Participants Flying Start Participants (N=62) • RCT (Hutchings, Griffith, Daley, Gridley, Whitaker, 2011) • Recruited across nine Flying Start Areas in North, South & Mid Wales Non-Flying Start Participants (N=14) • Recruited from Nurseries/Adverts/Flyers in targeted non-flying Start areas All: • Consented to being video-taped during observations • Had data available for the baseline assessment & at a 6-month follow-up • Child was aged between one and three years old at baseline

15. Participants

16. Procedure Home Visits (2 hour visits) Parent Interview – Personal Data Health Questionnaire (PDHQ: Hutchings, 1995) Child Developmental Assessment – Schedule of Growing Skills II (SGS: Bellman & Ackett, 2007) Parent-Child Free-Play Video-taped Observation (30-minutes) Transcription & Coding Hand-typed transcriptions from the final 15-minutes of video-recorded observations. Coded according to Hart & Risley (1995) ‘Quality Features’ 20% of transcripts independently checked & coded by second researcher

17. Defining ‘Quality’ Definition An essential or distinctive characteristic, property, or attribute. A characteristic, innate or acquired, that, in some particular, determines the nature and behavior of a person or thing

18. Defining ‘Quality’: Hart & Risley, 1995 Verb Tense 2+ Clauses Declaratives Imperatives Interrogatives Affirmations Prohibitations Nouns Verbs Modifiers Functors Total Words Total Diff Words Positive Negative Neutral Initiations Responses Floor-holding

19. (05:23)P: Where (Adverb) is (verb) your (pronoun) nose (noun)?(05:25)P: Dylan (not coded) come (noun) here (adverb) please (adverb)(05:27)P: Come (noun) show (verb) mummy (noun) where (adverb) your (pronoun) nose (noun) is (verb). Valence = Neutral Total Words = 15 Total Different Words = 9 Total Nouns =5 Diff Nouns = 3 Total Verbs = 3 Diff Verbs = 2 Modifiers = 4 Functors = 2 Tense: Past = 0 Present = 3 Future = 0 Discourse Function: Declaratives = 0 Questions = 1 (Wh-) Imperatives = 2 Adjacency Condition: Initiations = 1 Floor-holding = 2 Response = 0

20. Preliminary Results IAdjacency Condition

21. Preliminary Results IIDiscourse Function

22. Objective of the PhD • Compare the frequency of quality features used within parental language in low and high SES families • Measure changes in the frequency of quality features within a Flying Start population who received a Parenting intervention • Compare these results to a non-Flying Start sample & a Flying Start control sample • Assess potential mediators of the occurrence of quality features within parental language on children’s overall developmental outcomes & language outcomes

23. Any Questions? Thank You For Listening