Purpose of our Research
Our research team has worked to address the need for language intervention strategies that are easy to use and based on research evidence. The Language Intervention Team at Juniper Gardens Children’s Project and colleagues have conducted a number of federally funded research and demonstration projects resulting in an intervention approach that combines evidence-based strategies into a series of materials and strategies designed to build the capacity of adults to promote the communication of their infants and toddlers and young children.
Project Descriptions
Observation Assessment Development – To enhance our ability to investigate caregiver-child interactions, the contexts supporting those interactions, and the contribution of both to children’s language learning, we developed the “Parent, Infant, Caregiver Computerized Observation of Language Interactions (PICCOLI; Walker, Hart & Hou, 1995) (OSEP). Read more…
Beacons of Excellence Project – In our Beacons of Excellence project (OSEP), we observed adult-child interactions between 50 infants and toddlers and their caregivers monthly and found that in community-based child care, caregivers only rarely talked to children and consequently, children spent very little time communicating. When we analyzed occasions when children did communicate, we found that child communication was closely associated with adults’ use of strategies such as commenting and labeling, using open-ended questions, and imitation. Read more…
Promoting Communication with Infants and Toddlers Project – The purpose of the Promoting Communication with Infants and Toddlers project was to translate developmental research on language promoting techniques into practice through interventions that focus on the delivery of effective evidence-based practices by caregivers in the context of inclusive community-based programs. Read more…
Model Demonstration Center for Promoting Language and Literacy Readiness – The Model Demonstration Center for Promoting Language and Literacy Readiness in Early Childhood (KS MDC) Funded by the U.S. Department of Education’s Office of Special Education Programs (OSEP) (Walker & Warren, 2008) was completed in 2014 although research partnerships continue (Dale Walker, Principal Investigator, Kathryn Bigelow and Jane Atwater, Co-Principal Investigators). Read more…
Project Engage – Project Engage is a research study aimed at examining how cell phones can be used to promote parent engagement in home visiting, and how home visitors can support parents in using naturalistic strategies for promoting child communication development. With these two goals in mind, we are working in collaboration with three agencies providing home-based interventions to families: Project EAGLE (Kansas City, Kansas), SEK-CAP (Southeast Kansas), and Wyandotte County Infant-Toddler Services (Kansas City, Kansas). Read more…
Other Related Projects – Building upon this research has been work reporting results of a randomized control trial investigating an online system supporting screening for children at risk for language delay, which supports home visitors’ and parents’ use of the Promoting Communication Strategies Intervention in conjunction with progress monitoring using the Early Communication Indicator (ECI) using an Response to Intervention (RTI) decision-making technology application. Read more…