Abstract
Objective
This study examined whether training Latina mothers, during a home visiting program, to engage in elaborative reminiscing (ER) with their preschool-aged children would lead to improvements in their children’s recall of events and vocabulary.
Methods
Three-year-old children and their mothers were randomly assigned to an ER group or an active control group. During a 4-month period, mothers in the ER group used strategies to elicit personal narratives from their child. Over the same period, mothers in a control group engaged in games and activities with their child.
Results
At the 4-month posttest, mothers who participated in ER asked fewer closed-ended questions about a past event than controls (Cohen d = 0.49). Their children’s personal narratives included more descriptive and nonverbal enactment event details than the control children (ds ranged from 0.53 to 0.56). A year later, children in the ER group had significantly higher receptive English vocabulary scores than controls (d = 0.83). The possibility for transfer of mothers’ ER strategies to book reading was also examined, but no significant effects were found.
Conclusions
Results support the feasibility and benefits of an elaborative conversations intervention for Latino parents and children. Gains in children’s narrative skills were consistent with prior research in which Latino families construct stories in culturally specific ways.
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Acknowledgements
We wish to thank the children and parents who participated in this research. We also thank Monica Arellano for her support with intervention training and Veronica Angyal for her assistance with data coding.
Author Contributions
K.T. designed the study, managed execution of the study, completed data analyses, and helped to write the paper. A.S. collaborated on the design of the study and writing of the paper.
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Institutional Review Board (IRB) approval was obtained from the IRB committee of Momentous Institute. All study procedures were conducted in accordance with the 1964 Helsinki declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards.
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Thierry, K.L., Sparks, A. Latino Families Engage in Elaborative Conversations: Effects on Children’s Recall and Vocabulary. J Child Fam Stud 28, 2297–2311 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10826-019-01446-0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10826-019-01446-0