The effectiveness of parental education via smartphone application on number of utterances and initiation ratio

Abstract

Objectives: Children with language delay have low competence in lexical, grammatical knowledge and pragmatic skills. The problems they have can affect their later academic performance and peer relationships. Therefore early intervention is highly recommended. One of the effective methods for early intervention is parental education. However, parents have difficulty in generalizing the strategies they have learned. Thus, the purpose of this study was to explore the effectiveness of using a smartphone application as a tool for increasing the effectiveness of parental education. Methods: Eight mothers and their children with language delay between 2 and 3 years old participated in this study. As a pre-test researchers collected spontaneous language samples. After the pre-test, 6 sessions of parental education were conducted. During the parental education, four parents were asked to use the smartphone application during parent-child interaction. But, the rest of the parents were asked to keep a log of the duration of interaction instead of using the smartphone application. After the end of all sessions, a post-test was conducted in the same method as the pre-test. Each spontaneous speech sample was collected and analyzed for the number of utterances and initiation ratio. Results: The children in the experimental group, who used the smartphone application during parental education showed higher intervention effects than the control group. Conclusion: Parental education can modify parent-child interaction style in positive and effective ways. Additionally, smartphone applications can feasibly increase the effect of parental education. © 2015 Korean Academy of Speech-Language Pathology and Audiology.