Evaluating the Impact of Story Starters on Children's Language Development

Julian Pine

Status: Completed

Conditions: Language Development

Treatments: Behavioral: Wait-list Control; Behavioral: Story Starters Intervention

Study type: Interventional

Funder types: Other

Identifiers

NCT03268928

1869

Details and patient eligibility

About

The aim of this project is to evaluate whether Beanstalk's 'Story Starters' intervention is effective in boosting vocabulary and grammatical development in young children.

Full description

Children who read regularly with their parents or carers tend to learn language faster, enter school with a larger vocabulary of words and become more successful readers in school. Because of this, local authorities often commission services to promote family-based shared book reading. However, recent studies suggest that shared reading interventions work less effectively for children from disadvantaged backgrounds than originally thought, particularly when their parents have lower levels of education. This means that there is a danger that the benefits of shared reading will be restricted to children from more affluent homes and not get through to those who need them most. To solve this problem, there is a need to develop a better understanding of how reading interventions work and to evaluate existing shared reading interventions to determine whether they are effective in promoting young children's language development.

The aim of this project is to evaluate whether Beanstalk's 'Story Starters' intervention is effective in boosting vocabulary and grammatical development in young children. Story Starters is a reading intervention delivered by Beanstalk, a national children's literacy charity committed to ensuring no child faces the severe consequences of illiteracy. Beanstalk trains volunteers to provide caring and fun one-to-one support to disadvantaged children aged 3 and 4 in local nurseries, aiding their language development.

The project will compare the effects of the 'Story Starters' intervention against a wait-list control group. Children in the intervention group will receive the Story Starters intervention, delivered by a trained Beanstalk volunteer, at their preschool for six months. The trained volunteer will visit the child twice a week and deliver a one-to-one 20 minute book reading and play session. Children in the intervention group will also receive a new book each month which will be sent to their home address by Dolly Parton's Imagination Library.

Children in the wait list control group will also receive a new book each month from Dolly Parton's Imagination Library but they will not receive the 'Story Starters' intervention until after the project has ended.

Enrollment: 198 patients

Sex: All

Ages: 3 to 5 years old

Volunteers: Accepts Healthy Volunteers

Inclusion criteria

All families will be included unless they fit the exclusion criteria

Exclusion criteria

• Children born before 37 weeks gestation (premature)
• Children who weighed less than 5lb 9oz at birth (low birth weight)
• Children who have had an ear infection/glue ear for longer than 3 months, 4-6 ear infections within a 6 month period or another identified hearing problem (e.g. at newborn hearing screening)
• Children with an identified developmental disability (e.g. Cerebral Palsy, Autism Spectrum Disorder, Fragile X syndrome, Muscular dystrophy, Di George syndrome, Down's syndrome, Williams syndrome)
• Children with a hearing or visual impairment
• Children who hear another language (not English) for 1 day or more in a typical week (please note that this also excludes children of parents who do not speak English)
• Children whose parents have a learning disability which puts their children at risk of language delay and excludes the parents from giving informed consent on their own and on their children's behalf.

Trial design

Primary purpose: Treatment

Allocation: Randomized

Interventional model: Parallel Assignment

Masking: Quadruple Blind

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198 participants in 2 patient groups

Story Starters Intervention

Experimental group

Description:

Children will receive the the Story Starters intervention for six months. Each child will be visited by a trained Story Starter volunteer twice a week while the child is in preschool. The sessions will last 20 minutes and in each session the Story Starter volunteer and child will read books and play with toys. The Story Starter volunteers will keep a record of the number of sessions each child attends. Each child will receive one new book per month delivered to their home address by Dolly Parton's Imagination Library.

Treatment:

Behavioral: Story Starters Intervention

Wait-list Control

Other group

Description:

Children in the wait-list control arm will continue to attend preschool as normal during the randomised controlled trial (RCT) and will receive the Story Starters intervention after the RCT has finished. Each child will receive one new book per month delivered to their home address by Dolly Parton's Imagination Library.

Treatment:

Behavioral: Wait-list Control