The effects of parent coaching on language outcomes at 18 and 24 months: A randomized controlled trial

Abstract

The prevalence of parentese in speech directed to 11- and 14-month-old infants predicts infants’ concurrent babbling as well as their future language skills at 24 months, suggesting that this speaking style may enhance learning. We recently showed that when parents are “coached” about the importance of language input to infants, and parentese, they increase the proportion of parentese and child-directed speech. This has an immediate and positive effect on child language outcomes at 14 months. In the present study, we asked whether the effects of coaching parents extend to longer-term language outcomes. Families of typically developing 6-month-old infants were assigned to Intervention (parent coaching) and Control (no coaching) groups. Parent coaching took place when infants were 6- 10-, 14- and 18-months of age, and included quantitative and qualitative linguistic feedback derived from each family’s first-person LENA recordings at home. Language outcomes were measured at 18- and 24-months of age. Parent coaching significantly enhanced the percentage of child-directed speech and parentese in parental input between 6 and 18 months in coached vs. uncoached parents. Children of parents who received coaching showed enhanced language outcomes at 18 and 24 months.