Shared Book Reading Intervention for Parents of Infants and Toddlers

Shared book reading is a well-established vehicle for promoting child language and early development. Yet, existing shared reading interventions have primarily included only children age 3 years and older and high quality dialogic strategies have been less systematically applied for infants and toddlers. To address this gap, we have developed a book-sharing intervention for parents of 12- to 36-month-olds. The current study evaluated acceptability/usability and preliminary efficacy of book-sharing intervention in a randomized controlled trial. Parent-child dyads were randomized to either 8-week book-sharing intervention (n=15) or wait list control (n=15). Parent book-sharing skills were assessed at baseline, post-intervention, and 2-month follow-up. Results indicated parents found the intervention highly acceptable and useful. Parents receiving intervention demonstrated significant improvement in book-sharing strategies compared to controls at post-intervention and 2-month follow-up. The current study provides evidence for the benefit of a brief, low intensity, targeted intervention to enhance parent book-sharing with infants and toddlers.