Infant and Parent Shared Book Reading

University of Florida

Status: Completed

Conditions: Individual, Category, and No-label Conditions

Treatments: Behavioral: Effects of shared book reading: Labels

Study type: Interventional

Funder types: Other; NIH

Identifiers

NCT04337372

5R21HD102715-02 (U.S. NIH Grant/Contract)

IRB202000756-N

1R21HD102715-01 (U.S. NIH Grant/Contract)

Details and patient eligibility

About

This work is guided by two specific aims and is expected to result in a better understanding of the effectiveness of shared book reading as a tool for supporting parent-infant interactions and infant learning across the first year of life. This work determined the extent to which books with individually-named characters (e.g., "Boris", "Fiona") increases parent-infant joint attention and infant selective attention relative to books with generic labels (e.g., "Bear", "Bear") or no labels and whether attention differs by age. During infant-parent shared book reading joint attention was measured using dual eye-tracking. Infants and parents then returned to the lab the next day and infant selective attention and infant-parent neural synchrony was measured using EEG.

Full description

Shared book reading has been found to have broad developmental benefits for language, socio-emotional and cognitive development. However, the effects of shared book reading on infant development are not well understood. Although healthcare professionals and educators ask parents to read books to their infants early and often, the book reading experience itself has never been systematically investigated in infancy. This work is guided by two specific aims and is expected to result in a better understanding of the effectiveness of shared book reading as a tool for supporting parent-infant interactions and infant learning across the first year of life. The primary aim of the proposed work is to determine the extent to which books with individually-named characters (e.g., "Boris", "Fiona") increases parent-infant joint attention and infant selective attention relative to books with generic labels (e.g., "Bear", "Bear") or no labels and whether attention differs by age. To address the aim of this project, a cross-sectional sample of 6-, 9-, and 12-month old infants and their parents came to the laboratory and read a book that includes three distinct character labeling conditions (individual names, generic category labels, no label). During infant-parent shared book reading joint attention was measured using dual eye-tracking. Infants and parents then returned to the lab the next day and infant selective attention and infant-parent neural synchrony was measured using EEG frequency tagging while infants and their parent viewed familiar characters across labeling conditions as well as unfamiliar characters. This project determined the extent to which parent-infant shared book reading impacted infant attention, parent-infant joint attention, EEG power, and parent-infant EEG synchrony.

Enrollment: 146 patients

Sex: All

Ages: 5 months to 65 years old

Volunteers: Accepts Healthy Volunteers

Inclusion criteria

• Infants will be included if they are typically developing and between 5.5 and 12.5 months of age, as well as their caregiver.
• Parents 18-65 years old

Exclusion criteria

1. Infants who were born more that 14 days premature.
2. Infants who with a history of neurological or visual deficits.
3. Infants with a history of seizures or a disorder that includes risk of seizures.
4. Infants with a parent that has a history of seizures of a disorder that includes risk of seizures.
5. Parents with a history of seizures or a disorder that includes risk of seizures.

Trial design

Primary purpose: Basic Science

Allocation: Non-Randomized

Interventional model: Parallel Assignment

Masking: None (Open label)

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146 participants in 4 patient groups

6 month olds

Active Comparator group

Description:

6-month old infants and a parent completed shared book reading and infant visual attention, joint visual attention (dyad, co-occurrence of parent and infant attention toward the book), infant EEG power, and infant-parent EEG coherence were measured in for objects labeled with individual level names, category-level names, and no label. All infant-parent dyads completed all three conditions.

Treatment:

Behavioral: Effects of shared book reading: Labels

9 month olds

Active Comparator group

Description:

9-month old infants and a parent completed shared book reading and infant visual attention, joint visual attention (dyad, co-occurrence of parent and infant attention toward the book), infant EEG power, and infant-parent EEG coherence were measured in for objects labeled with individual level names, category-level names, and no label. All infant-parent dyads completed all three conditions.

Treatment:

Behavioral: Effects of shared book reading: Labels

12 month olds

Active Comparator group

Description:

12-month old infants and a parent completed shared book reading and infant visual attention, joint visual attention (dyad, co-occurrence of parent and infant attention toward the book), infant EEG power, and infant-parent EEG coherence were measured in for objects labeled with individual level names, category-level names, and no label. All infant-parent dyads completed all three conditions.

Treatment:

Behavioral: Effects of shared book reading: Labels

Adult Parents

Active Comparator group

Description:

Adult parents of infant participants completed shared book reading with their infants. Joint attention and EEG synchrony data were recorded and combined with infant data for analyses. No adult data were analyzed separately from infant data.

Treatment:

Behavioral: Effects of shared book reading: Labels