Baby talk home visits: Development and initial evaluations of a primary prevention service

Abstract

Language delay is a common developmental difficulty. Research indicates that it is influenced by environmental factors, particularly social deprivation, but that a parent’s interaction protects children’s language development against these factors. It is hypothesized that by supporting parents’ interaction, language development may be facilitated. This study aims to evaluate a preventative intervention for language delay. The Babytalk Home Visiting (BTHV) service was developed and delivered in Portsmouth, UK from 2003 to 2007. Two separate evaluations of the BTHV service were carried out, the first using parent questionnaires and the second using a comparative evaluation of parent ideas and child-language outcomes. In the first evaluation parents indicated that they valued the information given in the BTHV service, and 72.5% stated they would change their communication behaviour according to advice given. In the second evaluation, parents who reported receiving the BTHV service gave a significantly greater number of ideas on how to encourage language development, and reported a significantly higher child word count than parents who had not. The results of these evaluations suggest that this preventative initiative may be beneficial; however, limitations of the evaluation findings are discussed, and it is concluded that controlled comparative research is required to establish the effectiveness of such approaches.