Related Experiment Video

Updated: May 14, 2026

Portable Intermodal Preferential Looking (IPL): Investigating Language Comprehension in Typically Developing Toddlers and Young Children with Autism
10:11

Portable Intermodal Preferential Looking (IPL): Investigating Language Comprehension in Typically Developing Toddlers and Young Children with Autism

Published on: December 14, 2012

Improving toddlers' expressive language skills through attachment-based intervention: A randomized controlled trial

Brenda Jones Harden1,2, Tiffany L Martoccio2, So Yeon Shin2

  • 1Columbia School of Social Work, New York, NY, United States.

Child Development
|May 12, 2026
PubMed

This study examined the impacts of Attachment and Biobehavioral Catch-up (ABC) on expressive language of Latine toddlers living with their biological parents (N = 173), randomized to home-based Early Head Start supplemented by ABC, or a control group. Mothers' mean age was 30.9 years (SD = 6.5); toddlers (49.7% male) mean age was 13.0 months (SD = 4.1). Compared to controls, children in the ABC group produced significantly higher numbers of utterances and morphemes, types, and tokens, as well as greater mean length of utterances in words and morphemes. An indirect effect of ABC through dyadic mutuality was documented for number of utterances, types, tokens, and morphemes. Findings are considered in the context of the literature on the developmental impacts of parenting interventions.

Keywords:
attachment and biobehavioral catch-updyadic mutualitylatine familiesparenting interventionstoddler language

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