Does the use of prompts in shared reading facilitate the quantity and quality of language in Down Syndrome children?

Does the use of prompts in shared reading facilitate the quantity and quality of language in Down Syndrome children?

Laura J. Durrans

2017

Children with Down syndrome typically present with specific linguistic and communicative difficulties. The present study aims to explore how dialogic prompted reading facilitates better quality and quantity of language production in pre-school aged Down syndrome children. Research has demonstrated how reading interventions enhance typically developing children’s linguistic qualities, yet few studies have investigated the beneficial effects of dialogic prompted reading among Down syndrome children. Eight Down syndrome and 8 typically developing children completed two shared reading tasks with their mothers. One task involved reading a book containing a series of prompted questions, the other book contained no prompts. As predicted, prompted reading resulted in the development of more complex syntax, better vocabulary production and facilitated better responses accuracy to literal and inferential concepts, in Down syndrome children. In addition, the inclusion of prompts also increased parental scaffolding techniques for both diagnostic groups. The results from this study indicate that dialogic prompted reading does improve Down syndrome children’s qualitative and quantitative linguistic abilities and promotes better communication with parents during shared reading tasks. These findings highlight the educational significance of prompted dialogic reading as a highly beneficial intervention for developing an array of linguistic qualities in children with Down syndrome.

Down syndrome, linguistic abilities, dialogic reading, prompted reading.

Participants
A total of 16 children and their mothers took part in this study. Eight children with Down syndrome (DS: 4 female, 4 male, age range = 4.58 years to 6.75 years, Mage = 5.3 years) and 8 typically developing children (TD: 2 female, 6 male, age range = 3.9 years to 6.66 years, Mage = 5.1 years). This is a secondary data analysis study and all participants were previously recruited by the principle investigator and supervisor, Kate Cain. Video recordings of all child-parent reading dyads were made and were transcribed into written from. The Departmental Ethics Committee approved this study prior to the author receiving any video or transcribed data.
Stimuli
In this study, mothers were given two books to read with their children, ‘Mooncake’ and ‘Skyfire’ (Asch, 2014; 2014). Parents were asked to read both books as they normally would read at home with their child. One version of each book contained a series of 12 prompts which were inserted at specific points and parents where asked read them aloud as they went through the book (based on Van Kleek et al, 2006). Between both books there were a total of 24 prompts. For each book, prompts were evenly split between 4 sub-categories: picture labelling prompts “What is that? (pointing to Bear)”, vocabulary prompts “What does ‘hollow’ mean?”, inference prompts “ Why did Bear fall asleep?”, and general knowledge prompts “What else could Bear have used to stick the spoon to the arrow?”. The aim of the prompts was to encourage communication and scaffolding interactions between mothers and children when reading together. These books where specifically selected for multiple reasons: first, they have been successfully used in previous studies investigating linguistic impairments in pre-school aged children with language difficulties (Van Kleek et al 1997; 2006; Hammet, Van Kleek & Huberty, 2003). Second, the classic story-line of each book provides opportunities for children to follow a written and pictorial narrative, enhancing their visual perception skills, as well as being age suitable and cognitively stimulating for DS and TD children (Gibson 1996; Engevik et al 2016).
Procedure and Design
Parent/child reading dyads were separated into groups based on diagnosis, where DS children and their mothers formed the experimental group, and TD children and their mothers formed the control group. There were two conditions; typical ‘unprompted’ reading and prompted reading. All participants took part in all conditions. In the unprompted reading condition, parents were given one of the books, selected at random (i.e ‘mooncake’) and asked to read with their child as they would normally read at home. In the prompted reading condition, parents were given the other book (i.e ‘skyefire’) and asked to read with their child as they normally would at home, but to additionally ask the twelve prompts that were inserted into the book. Within each condition, the order in which each child/parent dyad read each book was counterbalanced, as well as the order of books being presented between diagnostic groups was counterbalanced.
The experimental sessions were conducted either in a university lab or at the participants home, and was a record session. The researcher did not take part in reading sessions, and was there for recording purposes only. Each reading session was audio and video recorded, which was later transcribed in to written format using Microsoft Excel. The specific areas of language where coded for using the Excel written transcript and then inputted into SPSS for statistical analysis.


Coding Categories
Child and parent speech were coded for under the following categories: children’s production of language (length and syntax), children’s production of specific vocabulary types (nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs, affirmatives and fillers), parents use of questions (literal and inferential questioning styles), children’s language abilities in response to questions (literal and inferential), accuracy of children’s response to questions (literal and inferential), parental scaffolding techniques and children linguistic abilities in response to scaffolding techniques. This was done so the direct effects of prompted reading on a variety children’s language abilities could be primarily investigated, as well as assessing the effect prompted reading has on parental scaffolding techniques.
Length and Syntax: total number of utterances, total number of words and mean length of utterances produced by children The total number of utterances produced by DS and TD children was coded for using a simple counting strategy, from the written transcripts in Microsoft Excel. Each sentence spoken by both groups of children, including singular words which posed as a sentence, were tallied to create the total number of utterances, between reading conditions. The total number of words was calculated by totalling every word in each utterance across both reading conditions, and the mean length of utterance was calculated by dividing by the total number of words by the total number of utterances each child spoke. Inaudible speech and vocalisations were not included in the coding, neither where onomatopoeic noises children made, such as ‘Zzzzz’ when pretending to be a bee, as they are representations of sound not speech. Onomatopoeic speech, for example ‘splash’ or ‘bang’ was included in the coding process as they are representations of speech. Additionally, speech where children were reading sections of the book alongside their mothers was excluded from the coding process, for the sole reason that reading alongside a parent does not represent language ability but reflects their reading ability. Each child had a score for the total number of utterances, total number of words and mean length of utterances produced for prompted and unprompted reading conditions, which were then inputted into statistical software SPSS. These factors represent the quantity element of language.
Vocabulary Production: nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs, affirmatives and fillers Children’s vocabulary production was coded under six sub-categories: nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs, affirmatives and fillers. These specific categories were chosen as previous research investigating vocabulary within DS has demonstrated that children present difficulties producing complex vocabulary categories, therefore two tiers of vocabulary were created: ‘basic’ vocabulary (nouns and verbs) and ‘complex’ vocabulary (adjectives and adverbs), to assess the effect of prompted reading on a large selection of vocabulary categories, rather than focusing on one particular type of vocabulary. These specific vocabulary categories are also applicable to the age range of children used in the study. Affirmatives (‘yes’, ‘no’ and ‘don’t know’) were coded for to investigate whether prompted reading affected the use of simplistic answers, specifically whether prompted reading decreased affirmative answers. Questions asked by children, like ‘what?’ and ‘why?’ were also included in the affirmative category, as they reflect an aspect of speech where a child is requesting for more information to further engage with the parent. Child questioning was rare and therefore did not require a category of its own. ‘Fillers’, additional words that make up a sentence, were also totalled. This was to investigate whether prompted reading facilitated more structured sentences, and therefore increased the number of fillers children produced. This was of particular interest for the DS group, as children with DS present difficulties in sentence structure. The total amount of vocabulary produced (inc. affirmatives and fillers) would therefore be equal to the total number of words produced.
Literal and Inferential Parental Questioning and Language Production Children’s ability to respond to literal and inferential questioning during shared reading sessions was coded for by adapting a four-level coding system previously used in studies investigating literal and inferential language in pre-school aged children (Van Kleek et al, 2003; Tompkins et al, 2013; Engevik et al, 2016). Previous coding schemes were designed to assess children’s literal and inferential speech across four linguistic domains, where the first two levels (Level 1 and Level 2) resemble children’s literal language, and the second two levels (Level 3 and Level 4) represent children’s inferential language (Blank, Rose & Berlin, 1978).
For the present study, children’s linguistic responses to literal and inferential questioning was only assessed under a 2 level system, where Level 1 represented speech in response to literal questioning, and Level 2 represented speech in response to inferential questioning. This adaptation was done to take into account DS children’s linguistic abilities, as a four-level coding system would have been too advanced for the particular task. Since DS children’s understanding of cognitive concepts and inferential questioning is limited, their linguistic responses to such questions would also be limited, therefore a two-level coding system was more acceptable.
For each set of 12 prompted questions used, 50% represented literal concepts (Level 1) and 50% represented inferential concepts (Level 2). Level 1 coded for children’s responses to labelling prompts (“What is that?”- pointing at Bear) and vocabulary prompts (“What does ‘hollow’ mean?”). Level 2 coded for children’s responses to inference prompts (“Why did Bear fall asleep?”) and general knowledge prompts (“What else could Bear have used to stick the spoon to the arrow?”). Parental prompts where also coded and separated between literal and inferential levels. The number of textual prompts and parental prompts where coded using a binary counting strategy, as well as the level of each question (literal or inferential) recorded. For each prompt, children’s responses where coded based their correct or incorrect response and vocabulary production (nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs and affirmatives) so each child had a score of response and vocabulary production for literal and inferential questioning, between prompted and unprompted reading conditions. (An example of the coding system can be seen in Appendix A).This particular coding method was designed to assess the extent to which textual and parental literal and inferential prompts enhanced children’s linguistic qualities, and pin point whether a specific type of questioning facilitated more correct responses and production of more vocabulary.
Scaffolding Techniques and Language Production Parents ability to successfully utilise scaffolding techniques between reading conditions was assessed, through designing a coding system that recorded each time parents took a break from reading the text to direct questions, these were labelled as ‘turn-taking sections’. The total number of turn-taking sections was coded, as well as the total number of questions parents asked per section and whether each question was literal or inferential. This was done to assess whether prompted reading encouraged parents to take more breaks from reading the text to ask their child questions, whether each time parents took breaks they asked more literal or inferential questions to engage their child. In addition to this, whether parental scaffolding enhanced children’s linguistic abilities were also assessed. This was done by coding the total number of words children produced per section, which would show whether parental scaffolding techniques enhanced children linguistic contribution. (An example of the coding system can be seen in Appendix B).
Accuracy The accuracy of children’s responses, in relation to literal and inferential questioning, was coded by using a three-level coding system, used by previous studies investigating accuracy of children language during shared reading (Engevik et al, 2016). Previously, children’s accuracy of response was coded for along a linguistic continuum, where ‘fully adequate’ represented accurate verbal responses, ‘partially adequate’ reflected verbal communication which is ‘on the right track’ but not necessarily accurate, and ‘inadequate’ which represented any response that was irrelevant (Sorsby & Martlew, 1991; Engevik et al, 2016). Previous studies investigating accuracy of speech in DS children have adapted the coding system to merge ‘fully’ and ‘partially’ accurate categories together, to take into account the linguistic and cognitive difficulties DS children face (based on Engevik et al, 2016). However, the present study uses a slightly adapted version of the original coding system, where children’s ‘fully’, ‘partially’ and ‘not’ accuracy of responses were coded, yet only children’s ‘fully’ accurate responses will be used in the final analysis. This was done so children’s fully accurate responses to literal and inferential parental questioning could be assessed. ‘Partially’ and ‘not’ accurate responses were not assessed in this particular study as the sole interest is children’s ‘fully’ accurate response. The reason as to why ‘fully’ and ‘partially’ categories weren’t merged for the present study was to gain a more realistic understanding of children’s fully accurate responses, and merging categories would not provide this. (An example of the coding system can be seen in Appendix C).

Lancaster University

Data/SPSS.sav

Durrans2017

Rebecca James

Open

None

English

Data

LA1 4YF

Kate Cain

MSc

None

8 children with Down syndrome and 8 typically developing children

None