Three questions were investigated in the current study. First, do children with ADHD have language deficiencies in comparison to non-referred peers? Second, are there diagnostic group differences in parent and child storytelling when interacting in a joint picture-book setting or in parent reported home literacy habits? Third, are these differences related to child language scores? Parents of 25 children with ADHD and 39 comparison children, average age 7 years 6 months, told their children a story based on a wordless picture-book, and children then retold the story to an examiner without using the book. In addition, children made up two of their own stories and completed a standardized test of receptive and expressive language abilities. Children with ADHD demonstrated an expressive language deficiency compared to the non-referred children, but there was no group difference in receptive language scores. Parents of children in both groups told stories of similar length and complexity, as well as affective and responsive quality. However, for the ADHD group but not the comparison group, more positive and responsive parents told stories on a lower grade level. The length of the childs retell of the parents story did not differ across groups but children with ADHD told shorter stories when asked to make up their own stories without the external structure or salience of visual cues. Further, there were no significant group differences in the relations between parent storytelling and child language scores. The implications of these findings for understanding parent and child storytelling and language abilities of children with ADHD are discussed.

Book sharing is a key literacy activity in the early years that predicts children's subsequent literacy and language abilities, and a wealth of evidence illustrates socioeconomic status (SES) differences in early childhood abilities. However, whilst research has examined book sharing frequency in depth, far less is known about how the quality of verbal and non-verbal interactions varies by the SES of the parent. This thesis addresses this question by considering the quality of book sharing interactions between mothers and their infants or children across three studies. In the first, longitudinal study, mother-infant dyads (N = 44) were filmed book sharing at 12 and 18 months (N = 34), and infant development was measured. A novel coding scheme identified a wide range of verbal and non-verbal book sharing behaviours. High SES dyads produced more positive behaviours at 12 and 18 months and these predicted infants' linguistic and cognitive abilities at 18 months. Differences in infants were observed only at 18 months, with low SES infants disengaging more frequently. To examine the link between book sharing, SES and emotional functioning in older children, the second study considered mother-child book sharing behaviours in a preschool aged sample (N = 46). There were SES differences in verbal, but not non-verbal book sharing behaviours. A small number of maternal book sharing behaviours were associated with children's social and emotional abilities, suggesting children's behaviour influenced the book sharing interaction. In the final study, a book sharing intervention was designed and delivered predominantly to low SES mothers (N = 24) to explore whether mothers' book sharing behaviours could be enhanced, and increases were found in all targeted behaviours. In conclusion, book sharing behaviours that have been found to provide a more enriched interaction were seen more in high SES dyads, and predicted infants' abilities. Encouraging low SES mothers to use these enhanced interactions was successful, indicating that higher quality book sharing can be increased via a short intervention.

The study examined Latino/Hispanic mother-child interactions and shared book reading behaviors before and after participation in a random-assignment Spanish web-based responsive parenting intervention called Play and Learning Strategies (ePALS), as compared with a Spanish web-based developmental assessment intervention (DAS). The efficacy of PALS was previously demonstrated for improving mother and child behaviors within play contexts, everyday activities, and standardized measures of child language. We did not observe statistical changes in mother-child interactions as measured by the Bilingual Child-Mother Coder Impression; but changes were observed in shared reading interactions as measured by the Adult-Child Interactive Reading Inventory. Mothers enrolled in ePALS slightly increased some reading interactive behaviors, while mothers enrolled in DAS decreased on the use of interactive reading skills. Children enrolled in ePALS significantly increased in their use of interactive reading behaviors, while children’s interactive reading skills in the DAS conditions decreased. These results add to the dual language learners’ literature base, but also add to the supporting importance of targeting responsive behaviors in everyday activities such as shared-reading to facilitate children’s development. Limitations and future directions are discussed.

abstract: ABSTRACT This study investigated the effects of a family literacy program for Latino parents' language practices at home and their children's oral language skills. Specifically, the study examined the extent to which: (a) the program called Family Reading Intervention for Language and Literacy in Spanish (FRILLS) was effective at teaching low-education, low-income Latino parents three language strategies (i.e., comments, high-level questions and recasts) as measured by parent implementation, (b) parents maintained implementation of the three language strategies two weeks following the program, and (c) parent implementation of such practices positively impacted children's oral language skills as measured by number of inferences, conversational turns, number of different words, and the Mean Length of Utterance in words (MLU-w). Five Latino mothers and their Spanish-speaking preschool children participated in a multiple baseline single-subject design across participants. After stable baseline data, each mother was randomly selected to initiate the intervention. Program initiation was staggered across the five mothers. The mothers engaged in seven individual intervention sessions. Data on parent and child outcomes were collected across three experimental conditions: baseline, intervention, and follow-up. This study employed visual analysis of the data to determine the program effects on parent and child outcome variables. Results indicated that the program was effective in increasing the mothers' use of comments and high-level questions, but not recasts, when reading to their children. The program had a positive effect on the children's number of inferences, different words, and conversational turns, but not on the mean length of utterances. Findings indicate that FRILLS may be effective at extending and enriching the language environment that low-income children who are culturally and linguistically diverse experience at home. Three results with important implications for those who implement, develop, or examine family literacy programs are discussed. / Dissertation/Thesis / Doctoral Dissertation Speech and Hearing Science 2015

PURPOSE: Parent-child reading allows parents to extend the walls of their home to introduce their children to novel places and scenarios, and is an important factor shaping language development. Accordingly, the parent-child reading practices characterizing the home literacy environment (HLE) offer rich potential to boost and diversify language input and exposure in early childhood, especially if parents use shared reading experiences to spark conversational dialogue around novel concepts. To date, it remains unclear how shared reading experiences may promote language interaction and development in early childhood for late talker children. Furthermore, the role of socioeconomic status (SES) in contribution to the relationship between language development and shared book reading interactions in early childhood remains understudied. Therefore, there is a need to further specify characteristics of shared reading practices and SES in relation to parent-child conversational interactions and child language abilities in early childhood. METHOD: 33 parent-child dyads (all mothers) of children classified as either late talkers (n = 15, 8 male) or typical controls (n=18, 9 male) were selected from an ongoing larger longitudinal study of language delay in collaboration with researchers at Northwestern University (PIs: Norton and Wakschlaug). Characteristics of parent-child conversational interactions during story book reading were assessed through language transcription and subsequent analysis of the quality and quantity of parent language input during these interactions. Parent language input measures and SES were evaluated for possible group differences between late talkers and typical controls, and subsequently examined as potential predictors of language status. RESULTS: Parental language input during shared book reading significantly differed among dyads of late talkers compared to typical controls, as indicated by mean length of utterance (MLU) in words, MLU in morphemes, moving average type token ratio (TTR), and number of different words. SES differences in parent education were also identified between groups. MLU in morphemes was found to significantly contribute to the prediction of language status in toddlerhood. CONCLUSION: Results suggest that the proximal factor of parent language input quality may be a more salient predictor of language development than the distal factors of SES for late talker children in particular. Findings highlight modifiable factors such as high-quality parent language input and shared book reading that have the potential to facilitate positive language outcomes for this population. These findings may lead to better guidance for adjustments that can be made within the HLE to improve language outcomes for late talker children.

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Even though the e-book market is increasing, little research has been done on readers who are late adopters of e-books, and their resistance and scepticism to e-book adoption. The Swedish and Japanese e-book market have had similar adoption rates since 2010. However, even though their adoption rates resemble each other, how readers gain access to e-books differ in Sweden and Japan. Swedish readers use the library, and subscription services, while Japanese readers mostly use mobile apps that specializes in certain genres, such as manga or special mobile novels called keitai shousetsu.This study investigates the similarities and differences between late adopters of e-books in Sweden and Japan, with the use of the diffusion of innovation-theory by Everett Rogers (2003). Qualitative semi-structured interviews were conducted in spring 2017 with five Swedish and five Japanese respondents, all readers who had yet to adopt e-books. The analysis found that the main factors for the respondents’ choice to reject or resist e-book adoption are an emotional bond to the print format, and the reading experience. The factors were related to trust issues, and an uncertainty in how e-books would affect their personal lives as well as their social systems. There were few differences between the Swedish and Japanese respondents. The main difference was that the Swedish respondents would talk about books with people outside of their immediate family to a larger extent than the Japanese respondents.

Studiens syfte är att undersöka vilka föreställningar förskollärare har kring högläsning och de frågeställningar som kommer att besvaras är; hur planerar förskollärare för högläsning, vilka eventuella utmaningar ser förskollärare med högläsning och vilka metoder använder sig förskollärare av för att göra högläsningen språkutvecklande. Studien bygger på en kvalitativ forskningsmetod där sex semistrukturerade intervjuer genomförts som sedan transkriberats, kodats och genomgått en tematisk analys för att strukturera resultaten. Resultatet av studien visar på hur förskollärare använder högläsning som en stimulerande och utvecklande aktivitet för barns språk. Resultatet var att förskollärarna främst arbetade med dialogic book reading eller som det på svenska kallas för dialogiskt läsande samt hur de tillämpade de olika stöttningsstrategier som finns för att samtala kring böcker. Förskollärarna ansåg att aktivt deltagande var av vikt för högläsningen och utmaningen var intresset både från pedagogens sida och barnens och detta för att möjliggöra högläsningen. Slutsatsen är att förskollärare anser att högläsning är en språkutvecklande aktivitet som de arbetar med kontinuerligt på ett dialogiskt sätt för att främja barns språkutveckling.

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