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Books before birth: a qualitative multiple case study of mothers reading to babies in utero
Abstract
Background:
This study is informed by research connecting parent-child book reading and attachment and by the concept of maternal-foetal attachment.
Aim:
To explore experiences of pregnant mothers who read picture books marketed to be read while their babies are in utero.
Study design:
This study utilised a qualitative, multiple case study design involving 10 pregnant women from the Midwestern region of the United States. Participants read picture books marketed to be read by expectant families and participated in an interview focused on their experiences and reflections, and completed a follow-up survey 24-27 months later.
Results:
Themes identified included (1) Learning and Love; (2) Seeing the Baby as a Person; (3) Natural or Weird?; (4) Fathers' Involvement; (5) Slowing Down: Focusing on Now and Envisioning the Future; and (6) Who is this for?
Discussion:
Findings suggest providing books to expectant families may be a promising practice and should be further researched.
... Since no research has been conducted in Lithuania that would prove to parents that the early education of a reader must begin in the home environment and that reading is very important for a child, we have to rely on the insights of foreign scientists. According to the research fi ndings of Cline et al. (2022), it is necessary to read to babies from the very fi rst days or even while the baby is still in the mother's womb, because they hear, respond to their mother's voice and, one could say, learn to read before birth. When books are read to children, their literacy experience is formed -parental literacy activities involvement and parental literacy expectations contribute more to children's literacy knowledge enhancement (Dong et al., 2020). ...
In Lithuania, the trend of parents not reading to their children is becoming evident. Understanding the importance of reading as the child’s educational need, it is likely that the lack of reading to children in the family could be compensated by the environment of the preschool education institution, therefore, the aim of the presented research is to find out what the pedagogical habitus of the Lithuanian preschool teachers in reading to children is, i.e., teachers’ attitudes and behaviour of reading to children. While using disguised observation and an informal conversational interview, three profiles of the teacher as a child-reader educator were identified and described in detail in the article: active reader educator, potential reader educator and passive reader educator. Referring to the findings of the study, it can be said that Lithuanian preschool education teachers lack knowledge about the child’s literary education and practical skills on how to do it in a quality manner. Therefore, in the near future, to compensate for this, it is necessary to prepare and offer qualification improvement programmes on children’s reading and literature issues to teachers of preschool education institutions. Nawyki pedagogiczne litewskich nauczycieli wychowania przedszkolnego w zakresie czytania dzieciom Na Litwie rośnie tendencja do nieczytania dzieciom przez rodziców. Rozumiejąc znaczenie czytania jako potrzeb rozwojowych i edukacyjnych dziecka, prawdopodobne jest, że brak czytania dzieciom w rodzinie może być zrekompensowany przez środowisko placówki wychowania przedszkolnego, a celem niniejszego badania jest zbadanie nawyków pedagogicznych litewskich nauczycieli wychowania przedszkolnego w zakresie czytania dzieciom, tj. postaw nauczycieli wobec czytania dzieciom i ich zachowań czytelniczych. Korzystając z ukrytej obserwacji i nieformalnych rozmów-wywiadów, zidentyfikowano i szczegółowo opisano w artykule trzy profile nauczyciela jako edukatora dzieci-czytelników: aktywny edukator czytelnika, potencjalny edukator czytelnika oraz pasywny edukator czytelnika. Na podstawie wyników badania można stwierdzić, że litewskim nauczycielom wychowania przedszkolnego brakuje wiedzy na temat literackiej edukacji dzieci i praktycznych umiejętności, jak ją prowadzić jakościowo. Aby zrekompensować to w perspektywie krótkoterminowej, konieczne jest zatem opracowanie i zaoferowanie programów doskonalenia zawodowego dla nauczycieli wychowania przedszkolnego w zakresie czytania dzieciom i literatury dziecięcej.
This study examined the interrelated and longitudinal impacts of parent-child shared book reading, parenting stress, and early relational health, as measured by both parental warmth and parent sensitivity, from infancy to toddlerhood. To extend findings from previous studies of collateral effects that have been conducted in parenting interventions, we examined parenting behaviors in a broader context to determine whether shared book reading would confer collateral benefits to the parent and parent-child relationship beyond those expected (i.e., language and literacy). It was hypothesized that positive parent-child interactions, such as shared reading, would have positive impacts on parent outcomes such as parenting stress, parental warmth, and sensitivity. The sample consisted of 293 low-income mothers and their children who participated in a randomized controlled trial. Shared book reading, parenting stress, and parental warmth were assessed when children were 6 and 18 months old. We computed a series of cross-lagged structural equation models to examine longitudinal interrelations among these three factors. Results indicated that shared book reading at 6 months was associated with increases in observed and reported parental warmth and observed sensitivity and decreases in parenting stress at 18 months, controlling for baseline risk factors and treatment group status. These findings suggest that early parent-child book reading can have positive collateral impacts on parents' stress and the parent-child relationship over time. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2020 APA, all rights reserved).
Attachment (AQS) of 100 children aged 12 to 24 months was
observed, with more than half of the fathers (and mothers) representing
higher social status. Children’s language comprehension
and production were measured using the Bayley Scales for receptive
(RLS) and expressive language skills (ELS). Spontaneous book
reading conversations in father-child and mother-child dyads were
coded from videotapes, capturing five modes of conversation
derived from research on dialogic reading. Path modelling examined
the association of these modes on children’s RLS and ELS in
concurrence with parental attachment and education. First time,
significant effects of father-child attachment security on children’s
RLS were revealed (and confirmed for mother-child dyads). Fathers’
impact on child language skills could be further explained through
modes which inquire and imitate child responses which were
related to RLS and ELS, respectively. Although mothers’ modes of
conversation were associated with the mother-child attachment
relationship, the father-child conversations were not so but instead
were associated with the father’s educational background.
It is widely believed that reading to preschool children promotes their language and literacy skills. Yet, whether early parent‐child book reading is an index of generally rich linguistic input or a unique predictor of later outcomes remains unclear. To address this question, we asked whether naturally occurring parent‐child book reading interactions between 1 and 2.5 years‐of‐age predict elementary school language and literacy outcomes, controlling for the quantity of other talk parents provide their children, family socioeconomic status, and children's own early language skill. We find that the quantity of parent‐child book reading interactions predicts children's later receptive vocabulary, reading comprehension, and internal motivation to read (but not decoding, external motivation to read, or math skill), controlling for these other factors. Importantly, we also find that parent language that occurs during book reading interactions is more sophisticated than parent language outside book reading interactions in terms of vocabulary diversity and syntactic complexity.
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The study explored the nature of mother-child conversation during and after a shared book reading (SBR) interaction and how it relates to children’s social understanding and prosocial behavior. Participants were 61 mother-child dyads (children’s mean age 5 years, 8 months) from low socioeconomic strata (SES). Mother-child SBR and their conversation following the reading were videorecorded. Children’s social understanding was evaluated via their ability to distinguish between social norms violations and moral violations. Prosocial behavior was evaluated through children’s sharing behavior. Results showed that during SBR, mothers and children from low SES tended to stick to the written text, whereas following the book reading, they elaborated beyond the explicit aspects of the text. Further, references to social-emotional issues during mother-child conversation correlated with the child’s social understanding and prosocial behavior, beyond the child’s vocabulary level.
As reading to children plays an important role in language development, primary caregivers are often encouraged to read to their children from a very young age. However, little is known about the age at which such reading should start. The linguistic skills of 104 children were assessed shortly before school entry. Their parents were asked how old their children were when they first read to them and how often they had read to their children. Almost half of the study children were read to before they were 6 months old. The age at which children were first read to was closely associated with family characteristics such as socioeconomic status, the frequency with which children were read to as preschoolers, and with children’s linguistic and cognitive competencies. The findings imply that reading books to very young children indeed contributes meaningfully to a favorable home literacy environment and supports children’s language development
Research Findings: The objective of this study was to understand how instructional book-reading style and emotional quality of reading interact and relate to cognitive skills in a sample of at-risk infants and toddlers. Participants were 81 parents and their children participating in Early Head Start programs in the rural Midwest. Correlation and multiple regression analyses were used to test the hypothesis that parental book-reading instructional style and emotional quality interact and relate to changes in children’s cognitive scores for culturally and linguistically diverse families. Results included that there were variations in how book-reading qualities interacted and related to changes in child cognitive scores for families whose primary home languages were either English or Spanish.
Practice or Policy: The results of this study are discussed in conjunction with findings from a previous study published in this journal that examined concurrent relationships in the same sample of Early Head Start families. Combined, findings of these studies underscore a need to further explore potentially complex patterns of relationships among parental literacy behaviors and child knowledge, concurrently and across time, for culturally and linguistically diverse families. Better understanding these patterns could inform the development and implementation of culturally sensitive intervention approaches designed to support high-quality parent–child book reading.
THIS STUDY explores the usefulness of the attachment relationship between children and parents for explaining differences in parent-preschooler reading in high- and low-socioeconomic-status families. On the basis of a questionnaire completed by about 350 mothers of 3-year-olds, three matched groups were composed: infrequently reading dyads, low SES (n = 15); frequently reading dyads, low SES (n = 15); and frequently reading dyads, high SES (n = 15). The children's behavior during a reunion after being separated from their mothers for about 30 minutes was scored on a rating scale for attachment security. Mothers and children were then observed while reading. The study supports the hypothesis that less secure dyads read less frequently. The groups also differed in the way parents shaped interactive reading: In the frequently reading group there was less communication about the book, whereas in the infrequently reading group more irrelevant interactions (such as disciplining) occurred. The frequently reading groups from low and high SES differed only in number of inferences. A developmental model of interactive reading is proposed, and it is concluded that programs must create a safe base from which children can explore literacy.
This study, involving 138 families rearing firstborn sons, extends work on bookreading by relating quality of parent-child interactive exchange during bookreading to contemporaneous and antecedent assessments of infant-parent attachment security. One parent and the child were observed when children were 12, 13, 18, and 20 months. At the first and third visit, infant-mother attachment security was assessed, with infant-father attachment security being assessed at the second and fourth visit. Following the assessment of attachment security at 18 and 20 months, parent and child were videotaped in a bookreading session. At 18 and 20 months, children responded to the pictures in a book by pointing and labelling, and their parents tried to initiate these reactions by following predictable routines. In contrast to other mothers, insecure-avoidant mothers were more inclined to read the verbal text and less inclined to initiate interactions around the pictures. Insecure-avoidant children were less inclined to respond to the book and were more distracted. In insecure-resistant dyads, overcontrolling and overstimulating behavior by the mother appeared to covary with ambivalence on the part of the children. The results do not support a similar pattern for the fatherchild dyads. Implications for family literacy programs are discussed.
To examine the effects of a parent book reading intervention in the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) on parent-infant interaction and on the incidence of parents reading to their infants 3 months post-NICU discharge.
A nonrandomized, participant blinded intervention study using a historical control group (CG) was conducted. The intervention group (IG: n = 59) consisted of parents of infants admitted to the NICU after the introduction of the parent reading program. The CG (n = 57) consisted of parents of infants discharged from the NICU in the 3-month period before the introduction of the reading program. Questionnaires were mailed to participants 3 months after their infant's discharge and completed verbally, over the telephone. Groups were compared on parenting activities and reading. In addition, a thematic analysis of qualitative descriptive data provided insight into the parents' experiences with reading to their infants.
Sixty-nine percent of IG parents reported that reading helped them feel closer to their baby, and 86% reported it was enjoyable. Parents reported an increased sense of control and normalcy and increased intimacy with their infant. Twice as many parents in the IG reported reading 3 or more times a week to their infants (55.9% IG; 23.3% CG).
Study results support the use of a parent book-reading intervention in the NICU to enhance parent-infant interactions and promote reading.
This study explored the relationship between the quality of the mother–child attachment and how often mothers read to their children. Eighteen children who were read to infrequently were matched to a group of children who were read to daily, for sex, age, and socioeconomic status. The children's mothers read them a booklet, mother and child were observed in a reunion episode, the children completed the Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test (Dunn, 1965) and Frostig's (1966) test for spatial orientation, and the mothers were given the Adult Attachment Interview (George, Kaplan, & Main, 1984). The mothers in the frequently reading dyads did not need to discipline their child to focus on the reading task as often as the mothers in the infrequently reading dyads did. Mothers whose attachment to their child was less secure spent less time reading to their child and had more troublesome episodes during the reading session than mothers whose attachment to their child was more secure. The security of the mother-child attachment was related to the mothers' representation of their relationship with their parents, and mothers who had a secure relationship with their child read more frequently to their child than did mothers who had an insecure relationship with their child.
Reach Out and Read (ROR), a clinic-based literacy program, has been shown to improve literacy outcomes in impoverished children. No study has used direct observation to assess a child's home literacy environment or to control for important confounders, such as the quality of the home environment. The objective of this study was to determine the relationship between the frequency of ROR encounters that a family receives during well-child visits and a child's home literacy profile, while accounting for important confounders, such as the quality of the home environment.
A cross-sectional study was conducted of 137 children (aged 18-30 months) who received pediatric well-child care at the Yale-New Haven Hospital Primary Care Center. The number of ROR encounters that the family received was determined though parent interview, direct observation, and a review of the medical record. After a brief waiting room interview, a home visit was conducted. An assessment of the child's home literacy environment was completed on the basis of 10 variables that were obtained from parent report and direct observation within the home. These variables were summed to form a Child Home Literacy Index. The Home Observation for Measurement of the Environment, a standardized measure of the nurturing quality of the home environment, was also administered. Hierarchical linear regression was conducted to determine the significance of ROR on a child's home literacy environment.
A total of 100 families completed both a waiting room interview and a home visit. Families received between 0 and 6 books in the ROR program. A total of 93% of families reported reading to their children, but only 35% of parents identified reading as a favorite activity of their child and 45% of parents reported that this was a favorite joint activity. Hierarchical linear regression demonstrated that increasing frequency of ROR encounters contributed a small but significant portion of the variance explaining a child's home literacy profile (5%), with this model accounting for a total of 19% of the variance.
A modest literacy intervention, such as ROR, can have a significant impact on a child's home literacy environment.
Parents are encouraged to read to their children as early as possible. Multiple studies of parent–child shared book reading with children ages 3 years and older have shown positive outcomes on parent use of language-based strategies and child language development. However, few studies have included children under the age of 3; thus, little is known about interventions for parent–child shared book reading practices with infants and toddlers. In this systematic review, we examined 12 studies of interventions that included practice opportunities to support parent–child shared book reading practices with infants and toddlers between the ages of birth and 3 years. Across the studies, parents were taught to use interactive shared book reading strategies through a variety of teaching functions; however, only six studies included direct measurement of parent strategy use and child behaviors during shared book reading interactions. Directions for future research and the implications of this review are discussed.
Shared book reading (SBR) is a valuable context for word learning during early childhood, and adults’ extratextual talk boosts the vocabulary building potential of SBR. We propose that the benefits of such talk depend largely on a reader’s success in promoting children’s active engagement (attention and interest) during SBR. When readers ask children questions about new words, especially if they respond to children in a prompt, contingent, and appropriate (positive) manner, this verbal responsiveness functions as an effective engagement strategy. We randomly assigned 3- and 4-year-olds to three reading conditions (low, moderate, and high) distinguished by the degree to which the reader used extratextual engagement strategies, including verbal responsiveness. Despite equal exposure to unfamiliar target words, children’s performance improved on two measures of word learning across the three conditions, demonstrating the value of engagement strategies in extratextual talk. This study provides a strong experimental demonstration that adult verbal responsiveness directly benefits preschoolers’ word learning.
Research Findings: The objective of this study was to understand how instructional book-reading style and emotional quality of reading interact and relate to cognitive skills in a sample of at-risk infants and toddlers. Participants were 81 parents and their children participating in Early Head Start programs in the rural Midwest. Correlation and multiple regression analyses were used to test the hypothesis that parental book-reading instructional style and emotional quality interact and relate to changes in children’s cognitive scores for culturally and linguistically diverse families. Results included that there were variations in how book-reading qualities interacted and related to changes in child cognitive scores for families whose primary home languages were either English or Spanish. Practice or Policy: The results of this study are discussed in conjunction with findings from a previous study published in this journal that examined concurrent relationships in the same sample of Early Head Start families. Combined, findings of these studies underscore a need to further explore potentially complex patterns of relationships among parental literacy behaviors and child knowledge, concurrently and across time, for culturally and linguistically diverse families. Better understanding these patterns could inform the development and implementation of culturally sensitive intervention approaches designed to support high-quality parent–child book reading.
Past research has indicated that parent–child book reading interaction quality, not just quantity, is a relevant consideration in children's vocabulary acquisition. In particular, children's active participation is considered key. This study investigated links between maternal beliefs about shared reading strategies and children's readiness to learn to read, mothers' observed shared reading behaviors, and children's vocabulary sizes. Participants were 62 mothers and their preschool children attending Head Start. Mother–child book reading was observed, and mothers' beliefs were measured via self-report and ratings of videotaped vignettes portraying reading strategies. Children's expressive and receptive vocabularies were assessed. Results revealed that dyadic shared reading quality mediated the link between mothers' beliefs and children's expressive, but not receptive, vocabulary. Further, mothers' perceptions of children's readiness to learn to read moderated the link between mother's beliefs and shared reading quality. This evidence highlights the importance of maternal beliefs in guiding behaviors that facilitate preschoolers' vocabulary development.
The Maternal-Fetal Attachment Scale (MFAS), a 24-item self-report questionnaire to measure the prenatal maternal feeling towards the unborn baby, was introduced by Mecca Cranley in 1981. Despite the widespread use of the questionnaire in clinical and research contexts, issues exist about its psychometric properties. An analysis of the literature showed the need for studies aimed at reviewing the MFAS by eliminating some items and modifying and "modernising" others. This study started from these suggestions and aimed to investigate the psychometric properties of a modified 20-item Italian version of the scale.
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While music listening has been studied as an intervention to help reduce anxiety in pregnant women, few studies have explored the effect of music listening on pregnancy-specific stress relief. This study examines the effects of music listening on psychosocial stress and maternal-fetal attachment during pregnancy.
A randomized controlled trial was implemented. A valid sample of 296 pregnant women in their second or third trimester was randomly distributed into an experimental group (n=145) and a control group (n=151).
The experimental group received routine prenatal care and music listening. The control group received routine prenatal care only.
Data were collected using a demographic form, Pregnancy Stress Rating Scale (PSRS), Perceived Stress Scale (PSS), and Maternal-Fetal Attachment Scale (MFAS).
The post-test results identified a significantly lower level of psychosocial stress in the experimental group than in the control group, particularly in terms of the stresses related to baby care and changing family relationships and to maternal role identification. However, no statistically significant differences in terms of perceived stress and maternal-fetal attachment were found between the post-test results of the two groups.
This study provides evidence in support of using of music in interventions designed to relieve psychosocial stress in prenatal women. IRB approval number: ER98223.
Copyright © 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
The purpose of this study was to describe the relations among mother-child interactions as they relate to written language, attachment security, and the child's performance on a number of emergent-literacy measures. 16 1½-year-olds, 15 3½-year-olds, and 14 5½-year-olds participated in the study. Each mother-child dyad read through 2 books (Dribble and Letterbook) and watched "Sesame Street" fragments about letters and words. The Strange Situation procedure was used to observe attachment security with the youngest group. In the older groups, the children were left on their own by the mother for about 1 hour, during which they were tested and it was observed how the children reacted upon the return of the mother. In addition, each 3½- and 5½-year-old completed 5 emergent-literacy tests. The results suggest that mothers of small children give reading instruction. Furthermore, it is shown that in securely attached dyads, there is less need to discipline; the children are less distracted than in anxiously attached dyads. In addition, securely attached dyads tend to pay more attention to reading instruction and to engage in more proto-reading. Last, children who get more reading instruction and less narration score higher on emergent-literacy measures.
Ethological attachment theory is a landmark of 20th century social and behavioral sciences theory and research. This new paradigm for understanding primary relationships across the lifespan evolved from John Bowlby's critique of psychoanalytic drive theory and his own clinical observations, supplemented by his knowledge of fields as diverse as primate ethology, control systems theory, and cognitive psychology. By the time he had written the first volume of his classic Attachment and Loss trilogy, Mary D. Salter Ainsworth's naturalistic observations in Uganda and Baltimore, and her theoretical and descriptive insights about maternal care and the secure base phenomenon had become integral to attachment theory. Patterns of Attachment reports the methods and key results of Ainsworth's landmark Baltimore Longitudinal Study. Following upon her naturalistic home observations in Uganda, the Baltimore project yielded a wealth of enduring, benchmark results on the nature of the child's tie to its primary caregiver and the importance of early experience. It also addressed a wide range of conceptual and methodological issues common to many developmental and longitudinal projects, especially issues of age appropriate assessment, quantifying behavior, and comprehending individual differences. In addition, Ainsworth and her students broke new ground, clarifying and defining new concepts, demonstrating the value of the ethological methods and insights about behavior. Today, as we enter the fourth generation of attachment study, we have a rich and growing catalogue of behavioral and narrative approaches to measuring attachment from infancy to adulthood. Each of them has roots in the Strange Situation and the secure base concept presented in Patterns of Attachment. It inclusion in the Psychology Press Classic Editions series reflects Patterns of Attachment's continuing significance and insures its availability to new generations of students, researchers, and clinicians.
The relationship — as represented — is proving to be of growing value in our thinking about clinical problems such as “intergenerational transfer.” It is also an extremely positive influence in our thinking about how the interpersonal world is remembered, abstracted, and lived. Yet, the nature of a “represented relationship” remains unclear. This paper is an attempt to clarify some of the problems and areas for needed study regarding this concept. The mother's representation of her infant and of the people in her own life who have played “maternal roles” will be taken as the model. First, we will explore the richness and complexity of these representations and conclude that, for clinical purposes, different models are used to simplify this richness and render it therapeutically useful. Three models will be discussed. The first is the disfortion model which measures the distance between the mother's subjective experience of her interaction or relationship with another and some objective, observable “reality.” The model of overdeter-mining themes is a second model, largely the inspiration of psychoanalysis but inclusive of Bowlby's theory of attachment. Here psychobiological and/or psychodynamic themes organize the clinical material. Finally, a coherence model is discussed. Here the motive is goodness of the narrative construction rather than the historical “truth.” A second issue discussed is the capacity to represent dyads vs. triads and actual vs. second-hand narrated relationships. These issues are crucial for notions not only about the nature of such representations but also their limitations in understanding family interactions and relationships, i.e., where many members are concerned. A third issue concerns the nature of the subjective experience for a mother when a representation of her infant or herself in relation to the infant is “activated.” There exists here an unknown typology of experience. Finally, we will discuss what all of the above have to contribute to our further understanding of the nature of represented relationships.La relation-telle qu'elle est représentée-s'avère ěAtre d'une valeur croissante dans notre approche des problèmes cliniques tels que le “transfert intergénérationnel.” Elle présente également une influence extrěmement positive dans notre approche sur la façon dont laquelle on se souvient du monde interper-sonnel, dont on en fait abstraction et dont on le vit. Cependant, la nature d'une “relation représentée” demeure confuse. Ce travail essaie de clarifier certains des problèmes et des domaines qui demandent à étre étudiés en ce qui concerne ce concept. La représentation que la mère se fait de son enfant et des personnes qui, dans sa propre existence, ont joué des “rǒles maternels” constituera le modèle. Tout d'abord, nous explorerons la richesse et la complexité de ces représentations et conclurons que, dans des buts cliniques, des modèles différents sont utilisés pour simplifier cette richesse et pour la rendre thérapeutiquement utile. Trois modèles sont discutés. Le premier modèle, le modeGle de déformation, mesure la distance entre l'expérience subjective de la mère de son interaction ou de sa relation avec un autre et une “réalité” objective et observable. Le modèle de thèmes surdéterminants constitue un deuxième modèle, dans une large mesure une inspiration de la psychanalyse mais comprenant la théorie d'attachement de Bowlby. Des thèmes psychobiologiques etlou psychodynamiques organisent ici le matériel clinique. Finalement, un modèle de cohérence est discuté. L'intention est ici la qualité de la construction narrative plutøt que la “vérité historique.” Un second problème discuté concerne la capacité à représenter des dyades par opposition à des triades et des relations véritables par opposition à des relations relatées par quelqu'un d'autre. Cesproblémes sont cruciaux pour les notions non seulement sur la nature de telles représentations mais aussi pour leurs restrictions en ce qui concerne la compréhension des interactions familiales et des relations, c'est-à-dire où plusieurs membres sont concernés. Un troisième problème concerne la nature de l'expérience subjective pour une mère lorsqu'une représentation de son nourrisson ou d'elle-měme en relation avec son nourrisson est “activée.” Il existe là une typologie inconnue de l'expérience. Finalement, nous discuterons ce que tout ceci doit offrir pour notre compréhension approfondie de la nature des relations représentées.
The purpose of this paper is to synthesize research on picture book reading with young children (i.e., children under the age of 3). In this paper, we review cross-sectional, longitudinal, and intervention reading research and describe changes in both parental and children’s behaviors during picture book reading from birth to age 3. Research related to additional factors that impact picture book reading between parents and their children such as parental characteristics (e.g., socioeconomic status), children’s characteristics (e.g., interest in books), and attachment status is also reviewed. Such factors are proposed to influence the frequency and/or quality of reading interactions and the beneficial outcomes of reading on children’s language development. Throughout the paper, we highlight gaps in the existing literature. From our synthesis, we propose a theoretical framework to guide future research involving reading with young children.
Pregnant women recited a particular speech passage aloud each day during their last 6 weeks of pregnancy. Their newborns were tested with an operant-choice procedure to determine whether the sounds of the recited passage were more reinforcing than the sounds of a novel passage. The previously recited passage was more reinforcing. The reinforcing value of the two passages did not differ for a matched group of control subjects. Thus, third-trimester fetuses experience their mothers' speech sounds and that prenatal auditory experience can influence postnatal auditory preferences.
Eighty-two mothers with their 44–63-week-old infants were videotaped in the context of picturebook reading. The Strange Situation procedure was applied to assess infant-mother attachment security. The observations of mother and infant behavior support the view of early literacy skills as the outcome of a fundamentally social process. The study shows that the infants' responses gain significance as denotative symbols through responding at books together with the mother, and eventually as the infants' responses grow more mature, through evoking responses and pointing by the mother. These learning/instruction processes depend on the affective dimension of the infant-mother relationship. Attachment security appeared to be related to the distraction/disciplining dimension of sharing a picturebook. The discussion goes into some consequences of learning to read as a social process.
Term fetuses discriminate their mother’s voice from a female stranger’s, suggesting recognition/learning of some property of her voice. Identification of the onset and maturation of the response would increase our understanding of the influence of environmental sounds on the development of sensory abilities and identify the period when speech and language might influence auditory processing.
To characterize the onset and maturation of fetal heart rate response to the mother’s voice.
143 fetuses from 29 to 40 weeks gestational age (GA) received a standardized protocol: no-sound pre-voice baseline (2 min), audio recording of their mother reading a story (2 min), no-sound post-voice (2 min). The voice was delivered 10 cm above the maternal abdomen at an average of 95 dB A; heart rate was recorded continuously.
For data analyses, fetuses were categorized into four age groups: 29–31, 32–34, 35–37, and > 37 weeks GA. Onset of response to the mother’s voice occurred at 32–34 weeks GA. From 32 to 37 weeks GA, there was an initial heart rate decrease followed by an increase. At term, there was a response shift to an initial heart rate increase. The percentage of fetuses responding increased over gestation from 46% at 32–34 weeks GA to 83% at term.
A relatively long latency and sustained duration of the heart rate response suggest auditory processing, the formation of neural networks, above the level of the brainstem.
Reach Out and Read (ROR) is the first pediatric, evidence-based strategy to prevent problems of early childhood development and learning. With a start in a single clinic in Boston City Hospital in 1989, doctors working in >4000 clinics and practices gave approximately 5.7 million new books to >3.5 million children in all 50 states in 2008. ROR also has become a model for a different way of thinking about parent education during primary care encounters, based less on telling and more on creating real-time learning experiences. ROR flourished because of (1) the growth of pediatric interest in child development, (2) local leadership of pediatric champions as well as nonmedical supporters, coordinators, and volunteers, (3) evidence of effectiveness, and (4) public financial support attributable to strong bipartisan support in Congress, led by Senator Edward Kennedy. Since ROR started, an increasing amount of research confirms the importance of reading aloud for the development of language and other emergent literacy skills, which in turn helps children get ready for school and leads to later success in reading. Future goals include continued growth until all low-income children are reached with pediatric advice and books, a national campaign led by physicians encouraging all parents to read to their children every day, additional evidence-based, parent information to increase the effectiveness of parents reading to children, quality-improvement efforts to achieve the full potential, and global expansion.
A 24-item scale with five subscales was developed to measure the construct of maternal-fetal attachment during pregnancy and tested on 71 subjects in the third trimester of pregnancy. Content validity was built into the scale. A coefficient of reliability of .85 was demonstrated for the scale with the reliability of the subscales ranging from .52 to .73. Scores of the MFA scale were positively correlated with the amount of available social support reported by women and with their perceptions of babies three days after birth. There was a negative association between MFA scores and the amount of stress perceived by the women. Further refinement of the scale is indicated.
Previous research has revealed that the human fetus responds to sound, but to date there has been little systematic investigation of the development of fetal hearing. The development of fetal behavioural responsiveness to pure tone auditory stimuli (100 Hz, 250 Hz, 500 Hz, 1000 Hz, and 3000 Hz) was examined from 19 to 35 weeks of gestational age. Stimuli were presented by a loudspeaker placed on the maternal abdomen and the fetus's response, a movement, recorded by ultrasound. The fetus responded first to the 500 Hz tone, where the first response was observed at 19 weeks of gestational age. The range of frequencies responded to expanded first downwards to lower frequencies, 100 Hz and 250 Hz, and then upwards to higher frequencies, 1000 Hz and 3000 Hz. At 27 weeks of gestational age, 96% of fetuses responded to the 250 Hz and 500 Hz tones but none responded to the 1000 Hz and 3000 Hz tones. Responsiveness to 1000 Hz and 3000 Hz tones was observed in all fetuses at 33 and 35 weeks of gestational age, respectively. For all frequencies there was a large decrease (20-30 dB) in the intensity level required to elicit a response as the fetus matured. The observed pattern of behavioural responsiveness reflects underlying maturation of the auditory system. The sensitivity of the fetus to sounds in the low frequency range may promote language acquisition and result in increased susceptibility to auditory system damage arising from exposure to intense low frequency sounds.
About half of 2,581 low-income mothers reported reading daily to their children. At 14 months, the odds of reading daily increased by the child being firstborn or female. At 24 and 36 months, these odds increased by maternal verbal ability or education and by the child being firstborn or of Early Head Start status. White mothers read more than did Hispanic or African American mothers. For English-speaking children, concurrent reading was associated with vocabulary and comprehension at 14 months, and with vocabulary and cognitive development at 24 months. A pattern of daily reading over the 3 data points for English-speaking children and daily reading at any 1 data point for Spanish-speaking children predicted children's language and cognition at 36 months. Path analyses suggest reciprocal and snowballing relations between maternal bookreading and children's vocabulary.
Oh, baby, the places you’ll go! (Seuss, Dr., Illus.). Random House Books for Young Readers
- T Rabe
- Rabe T
Can’t wait to show you: A celebration for mothers-to- be
- J Boyle
- S L Stonis
- Boyle J.
Nine months in my mommy: Autobiography of an unborn baby (A. Conzola, Illus.)
- C Marsh-Longmeyer
- Marsh-Longmeyer C
Ma! there’s nothing to do here! A word from your baby-in-waiting (V. Garofoli, Illus.). Random House Books for Young Readers
- B Park
- Park B