1. Assessing Quality Features of Parental Language Used With Toddlers Across Wales
Presented by: Nicole Gridley
Supervisors: Judy Hutchings
Tracey Bywater
Christopher Whitaker

2. Overview Background 3 Objectives of the PhD Methods for Study 1
Language Development
Language & Poverty
Wales & Poverty
3 Objectives of the PhD
Methods for Study 1
Preliminary Results for Study 1

3. News Headlines

4. Learning Language 3. Output 4. Labeled Praise 2. Processing Input
Green!
I recognise this colour.
Green! Well done. Clever boy!
2. Processing
Quality, amount
What colour are you using now?
Input

5. Language Development Timeline
3 Months:
Babbling begins
Startled at loud noises
4/5 Months:
Babbling consists of single consonant & vowel
i.e. da/ba
7/8 Months:
Stringing sounds together into longer chains i.e. dadada
10 Months:
Strings together different syllables i.e. damagaba
2 Months:
Cooing
12 Months
First word use
18 Months:
Understands questions
24 Months:
Words can be combined into 2 & 3 word phrases
Understands approx 300 words can say 40 words.
36 Months:
Understands 900 words can speak 200 words

6. Language Proficiency Benefits of language proficiency:
Academic attainment
Employment
Less likely to develop socially disruptive behaviour

7. Environmental Factors
Language Competency
Maternal Depression
Poverty
Family History
Sibling Rank
Inadequate Stimulation
Emotional Problems
Inadequate Opportunities for Child to Communicate

8. Poverty News Headlines

9. Poverty
Evidence to suggest children living in poverty are at an increased risk of:
Behavioural problems
Developmental delays
Social & Emotional incompetency
Language delays

10. Language & Poverty Hart & Risley (1995) – High SES v’s Low SES
High SES parents directed utterances p/hr to their children comparative to 700 utterances p/hr for low SES parents
Stein, et al. (2008)
High SES predictor of low maternal depression rates, higher quality care giving & higher child language scores at 10 months
Care giving style at 10 & 36 months predicted language scores at 36 months
Noel, Peterson & Jesso (2008) – Stress/ low-SES & Language Development
Parenting stress = high child emotion = low vocabulary scores & narrative length

11. Poverty in Wales
Pockets of severe deprivation highlighted across Wales
32% of children living below the 60% median income level (Child Poverty Strategy for Wales, Feb, 2011)
Welsh Government Initiative
Head Start/ Sure Start/ Flying Start
Areas highlighted as needing additional resources
£44 million invested over first two years in targeted Flying Start areas from 2007 (£2000 per child)
Access to free literacy
Additional Health Visitor visits
Access to parent & baby groups
A further £55 million to be invested in Flying Start from 2012

12. Objective of the PhD
Compare the frequency of quality features used within parental language in low and high SES families
Measure changes in the frequency of quality features within a Flying Start population who received a Parenting intervention
Compare these results to a non-Flying Start sample & a Flying Start control sample
Assess potential mediators of the occurrence of quality features within parental language on children’s overall developmental outcomes & language outcomes

13. Stage 1 – Baseline Assessment

14. Participants Flying Start Participants (N=62)
RCT (Hutchings, Griffith, Daley, Gridley, Whitaker, 2011)
Recruited across nine Flying Start Areas in North, South & Mid Wales
Non-Flying Start Participants (N=14)
Recruited from Nurseries/Adverts/Flyers in targeted non- flying Start areas
All:
Consented to being video-taped during observations
Had data available for the baseline assessment & at a 6-month follow-up
Child was aged between one and three years old at baseline

15. Participants Low SES (n = 35) High SES (n = 40) Mean age Mother (Yrs)
31.37 (7.22)
30.20 (6.43)
Mean age Child (Mths)
24.71 (6.28)
22.05 (6.56)
Gender of Child (M:F)
4:3
3:2

16. Procedure
Home Visits (2 hour visits) Parent Interview – Personal Data Health Questionnaire (PDHQ: Hutchings, 1995) Child Developmental Assessment – Schedule of Growing Skills II (SGS: Bellman & Ackett, 2007) Parent-Child Free-Play Video-taped Observation (30-minutes) Transcription & Coding Hand-typed transcriptions from the final 15-minutes of video- recorded observations. Coded according to Hart & Risley (1995) ‘Quality Features’ 20% of transcripts independently checked & coded by second researcher

17. Defining ‘Quality’
Definition An essential or distinctive characteristic, property, or attribute. A characteristic, innate or acquired, that, in some particular, determines the nature and behavior of a person or thing

18. Defining ‘Quality’: Hart & Risley, 1995
Vocabulary
Sentences
Valence
Turn-Taking
Nouns
Verbs
Modifiers
Functors
Total Words
Total Diff Words
Verb Tense
2+ Clauses
Declaratives
Imperatives
Interrogatives
Affirmations
Prohibitations
Initiations
Responses
Floor-holding
Positive
Negative
Neutral

19. Total Different Words = 9
(05:23)P: Where (Adverb) is (verb) your (pronoun) nose (noun)? (05:25)P: Dylan (not coded) come (noun) here (adverb) please (adverb) (05:27)P: Come (noun) show (verb) mummy (noun) where (adverb) your (pronoun) nose (noun) is (verb).
Valence = Neutral
Total Words = 15
Total Different Words = 9
Total Nouns =5
Diff Nouns = 3
Total Verbs = 3
Diff Verbs = 2
Modifiers = 4
Functors = 2
Tense:
Past = 0
Present = 3
Future = 0
Discourse Function:
Declaratives = 0
Questions = 1 (Wh-)
Imperatives = 2
Adjacency Condition:
Initiations = 1
Floor-holding = 2
Response = 0

20. Preliminary Results I Adjacency Condition

21. Preliminary Results II Discourse Function

22. Objective of the PhD
Compare the frequency of quality features used within parental language in low and high SES families
Measure changes in the frequency of quality features within a Flying Start population who received a Parenting intervention
Compare these results to a non-Flying Start sample & a Flying Start control sample
Assess potential mediators of the occurrence of quality features within parental language on children’s overall developmental outcomes & language outcomes

23. Thank You For Listening
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