Language Development
Conditions
Keywords
Vocabulary, socioeconomic status, Parenting, language, parent-child interaction, self-efficacy, infancy
Brief summary
The aim of this project is to assess whether video materials from the BBC Tiny Happy People (THP) campaign are effective in terms of improving the language skills of socioeconomically disadvantaged children before they start school. This project will also look at how useable the service is for parents in terms of acceptability, effects on self-efficacy and implementation of advice.
Detailed description
The current study will evaluate BBC Education's Tiny Happy People initiative (https://www.bbc.co.uk/tiny-happy-people) which seeks to reduce the impact of social and economic disadvantage on children's language skills before they arrive at primary school. BBC Education have created videos for parents and other caregivers with information about child development, tips and activities as well as other content of interest. The aim of the evaluation is to find out how parents feel about the materials and whether the videos promote a) caregiver confidence at 12, 18 and 24 months, b) caregiver-infant interaction at 12, 18 and 24 months and c) child language at 18 and 24 months. The primary outcome is expressive vocabulary size at 17-18 months. Families with 4- to 9-month-old infants who would like to take part will be randomly allocated either to a language support group or a physical health active control group and sent short, age-appropriate advice videos by text message three times a month until their children are 18 months old (with follow up videos for children until the age of 2 years where possible given study time limits).
Interventions
BEHAVIORALBBC Education Tiny Happy People videos
This intervention involves regular texting of BBC Education Tiny Happy People videos to parents
BEHAVIORALPhysical health control intervention
This intervention involves regular texting of publicly available videos about supporting infant physical and dental health to parents
Sponsors
University of Liverpool
University of Manchester
University of Melbourne
University of Sheffield
Study design
Allocation
RANDOMIZED
Intervention model
PARALLEL
Primary purpose
BASIC_SCIENCE
Masking
QUADRUPLE (Subject, Caregiver, Investigator, Outcomes Assessor)
Eligibility
Sex/Gender
ALL
Age
4 Months to 9 Months
Healthy volunteers
Yes
Inclusion criteria
Families must: * be raising their child as a monolingual English speaker (at least 80% of the language they hear in the home is English) * have a postcode in deciles 1-5 of the Office of National Statistics Index of Multiple Deprivation * have access to the internet and a device to watch videos (via smart phone) Infants must: * be full term * have a healthy birthweight
Exclusion criteria
Neither caregivers nor infants must have any significant known physical, mental or learning disability
Design outcomes
Primary
| Measure | Time frame | Description |
|---|---|---|
| 18 month expressive vocabulary | 2 months. Parents will complete the report within 2 months of the infant turning 18 months old. | Infant expressive vocabulary, assessed using the communicative development inventory (CDI) at 18 months |
Secondary
| Measure | Time frame | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Caregiver responsive behaviour at 12, 18 and 24 months | Measures will be collected within 2 months of the child turning 12, 18 and 24 months | Parents willing and able to upload a 5-minute video of a play time with their child will have the option to do so. A researcher will code the video using the PaRRis rating scale. |
| Caregiver self-efficacy at 12, 18 and 24 months | Measures will be collected within 2 months of the child turning 12, 18 and 24 months | Parents will be sent a self-efficacy questionnaire to complete in the format of a qualtrics survey, via SMS text message at each time point. Questions will focus on how parents feel about their parenting in general and supporting their child's language development and physical health. |
| 24 month expressive vocabulary | 3 months. Parents will complete the report within 3 months of the infant turning 24 months old. | Infant expressive vocabulary, assessed using the communicative development inventory (CDI) at 24 months |
Other
| Measure | Time frame | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Intervention uptake - number of video links that were clicked on | Clicking on a video link within one month of it being sent | Parents will be sent regular text messages with links to videos with information about supporting child language or physical health. We will take % of links clicked as a fidelity measure. We will check whether parents were more likely to click though to these links in one condition or the other and run a Complier Average Causal Effect analysis. |
Countries
United Kingdom
Outcome results
None listed