Increasing Children's Language in Day Care through Caregiver Conversations

The language interactions of four children aged (20-23 months) and their caregiver at a day care centre, were tape recorded daily in morning play sessions for nine weeks. After a four week baseline period, additional toys were provided (the Extra Toy phase), during the play sessions. Two weeks later, using a multiple baseline design, caregiver training was added (Extra Toys and Caregiver training phase) focussing successively on each of three children. Caregiver training involved verbal and written instructions, modelling and feedback on joint focus language interactions. The results suggest that (1) caregivers need training in language interaction skills to improve the quality and quantity of language interactions with young children. Providing an enriched environment i.e. extra toys, is not sufficient alone to improve language interactions. (2) There is a functional relationship between the quantity and the quality of language interactions and language acquisition, such that the increased ratio of conversations between child and caregiver result in increased rates of child language acquisition.