My overarching research goal is to develop brief interventions for toddlers with language delays, increasing access to early intervention support at a critical period in children's language development.
Identify language facilitation strategies that are most effective for children's early word learning.
Studies evaluating early interventions (EIs) often assess the effectiveness of entire intervention packages without ever testing individual language facilitation strategies. To make best use of the limited time in a brief intervention, it is essential that every strategy positively impacts child outcomes. My research focuses on testing individual language facilitation strategies to understand which strategies best support children in learning their first 100 words.
Determine factors that support caregivers in implementing these language facilitation strategies.
Caregiver-implemented interventions are the gold standard in EI service delivery. Research on this service delivery approach has focused on effective caregiver coaching techniques. One way to complement this work is to understand how individual differences in caregivers impact their ability to learn and implement the language facilitation strategies introduced in EI. My dissertation will explore a variety of factors, including those related to caregiver sociodemographic variables, family history, caregiver perception and concern, and child communication behaviors, to better understand how they may influence caregiver use of language facilitation strategies.
Incorporate these findings into clinically feasible, brief interventions.
The vast majority of EIs in the literature include intervention frequencies that do not align with the practical realities of EI service delivery. This may hinder the uptake of research into clinical practice. I am committed to developing and evaluating interventions that are clinically feasible. In A Brief Intervention to Teach Parents Naturalistic Language Facilitation Strategies, I explored the feasibility of a 20 minute caregiver coaching session and found that caregivers were able to learn language facilitation strategies in this short amount of time. I plan to continue focusing on brief interventions in the future to offer EI providers interventions that fit the demands of their caseload and explore how brief interventions might be used as a tool to combat long EI waitlists.