Learn more about the Talk With Me Baby study HERE.

This pilot study will attempt to demonstrate the preliminary efficacy of embedding universal language promotion (Talk With Me Baby [TWMB]) in well-childcare visits for enhancing the home language environment.

It is a multicenter trial as  part of the ECHO Program IDeA States Pediatric Network (ISPCTN), designed and led by Brenda Salley, PhD, from the University of Kansas Medical Center. The study will take place in two primary care clinics in two ISPCTN states that serve rural and underserved children and families. It is designed to provide the foundation for a full-scale trial, which will evaluate the efficacy of TWMB for enhancing both the home language environment and key early childhood outcomes (language and school readiness) in rural and underserved clinics.

The primary objective of the study is to explore preliminary efficacy of TWMB for enhancing the home language environment for at-risk families, specifically by examining whether the language-promotion behaviors of caregivers improve from baseline to post-intervention.

The total participant population goal is up to 172 people. Participants will be enrolled as dyads (up to 86) consisting of one caregiver and their child ages 0-9 months. Improvement in language-promotion behaviors will be measured by Language Environment Analysis [LENA] Conversational Turn Count and Adult Word Count percentile scores from baseline to post-intervention. The study duration is two years.