Effects of Parent-Implemented Language Intervention on Communication Skills of Iranian Toddlers: A Pilot Randomized Control Trial

In recent years, some studies have indicated that some aspects of language performance of children from low socioeconomic status (SES) families are lower in language tests. Appropriate and timely interventions can partially prevent communication problems in these children. This study aimed to investigate the effect of a parental education program on word acquisition rates in Iranian toddlers from low SES families.

Sixty-six mothers (toddlers aged 12-14 months) participated in this randomized controlled trial study. These mothers were allocated to the experimental group and control group using the randomization method of the permuted block (each block=6). After baseline assessments, mothers in the experimental group received parental education program aimed at enriching the mother-child interactions and mothers’ knowledge of communication development for 9 weeks. The control group did not receive any education. The outcome measures were children’s scores on the Persian version of the McArthur-Bates communicative development inventories and mothers’ scores in multiple-choice exams regarding workshops’ contents. Data were analyzed using of Chi-square test, independent t test and paired samples t-test, Mann-Whitney U-test, and Wilcoxon signed-rank test.

Both groups had a significant increase in vocabulary size, while changes in the experimental group were more than double that of the control group (P<0.001). Other aspects of communicative behaviors, such as imitation, naming, and intentionality were changed only in the experimental group according to the course of typical development (P<0.001). Mothers significantly got higher scores after the workshops in a multiple-choice exam regarding children’s communication, language, and interaction (P<0.001).

The results demonstrate that mothers’ knowledge of communication development is malleable and probably has positive effects on the communication behaviors of toddlers from low SES backgrounds.