The effectiveness of parent-implemented dialogic reading among preschoolers with and without autism spectrum disorder

Abstract

Two studies investigated the effects of a parent-implemented dialogic reading (DR) approach which incorporates practices for supporting preschoolers with and without ASD within the DR framework of instructional sequence (PEER: prompt, evaluate, expand, and repeat) and prompting (CROWD: completion, recall, open-ended, wh-questions, and distancing). Both studies adopted a similar research design. Parents in the treatment group attended a 1.5-h training workshop on DR. Reading materials were provided to the parents, along with visual prompt booklets to assist parents in conducting at home. Parents in the control group did not attend any training prior to the intervention, but they were provided with the same reading materials as the experimental group, except without the visual prompt booklets. Parent-child reading was conducted at home twice per week, about 10-15min each time, for 6-8 weeks among the experimental and control groups. In Study 1, 307 typically developing preschoolers and their parents were randomly assigned to 4 groups (DR, shared reading, mathematics boardgame and control). After 8-week intervention, children in the DR group showed significant improvement in language expression, listening comprehension, inferencing ability, and working memory. In Study 2, 31 ASD preschoolers were randomly assigned to treatment or control group. After 6-week intervention, children in the treatment group showed significantly enhanced performance in story comprehension, emotion knowledge, and reading engagement. Positive correlations were observed between parent’s self-efficacy in providing learning support to children, parent’s motivation, and parent-child relationship. Dialogic reading may serve as an opportunity for quality interaction between the parents and their children.