Preliminary feasibility and effectiveness of a novel community language intervention for preschool children in the United Kingdom.
Nicola Botting, Helen Spicer-Cain, Bernadine Buckley and 5 others
PMID 37568258WHAT IT FOUND
The main language outcomes did not show a clear group difference: expressive and receptive vocabulary did not improve more in the intervention group than controls.
Joint attention improved more, but this was a secondary measure.
Key findings
01Expressive and receptive vocabulary did not improve significantly more in the intervention group than in the wait-list control group.
02Initiated joint attention showed a significant interaction, with the intervention group improving more than controls.
0343 of 57 invited families took part, but only 26 children completed any assessments at time 2.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for SLPs
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What it does not show
The sample was small, and the paper states power was relatively low. Only 26 of 43 children completed any assessment at time 2, and only 13 of 43 had full data at time 3. No information was collected about how many sessions parents attended. No implementation fidelity data were collected. All 5 children with English as an additional language were in active settings. Maternal education was collected in a broad-brush manner. Video coding could miss non-verbal behaviours when faces were not clear, because one person filmed. Parents completed the CDI checklist just before filming, which may have encouraged naming behaviour. Data were collected pre-COVID.
Declared interests
L. Wood, J. Flynn and L. Reeves are staff members at Speech and Language UK and developed the Tots Talking Programme. The analysis of data was performed independently by the City team. No financial conflicts of interest exist.
The easy way to misread this
Do not conclude that Tots Talking improves children's language. The main expressive and receptive vocabulary outcomes did not show a clear group difference, and the joint attention gain was a secondary measure.