Increasing the Health of Early Parent-Child Interactions with Talk Pedometers - Melissa Clucas Walter

How do caregivers support language development in young children? And what interferes with this process? 

These are the questions Dr. Melissa Clucas Walter, an Assistant Professor of Human Development and Family Sciences, has dedicated her research to. 

Helping parents and other caregivers recognize the importance of their daily interactions with their child in shaping language development is an important goal of the research that Dr. Clucas Walter conducts. 

Dr. Clucas Walter points out that “a child’s earliest experiences occur within the context of relationships, and the day-to-day interactions that occur within those relationships are the building blocks of the child’s brain.” She adds, “Warm, responsive interactions with consistent caregivers are essential to positive developmental outcomes.” 

Dr. Clucas Walter has always been interested in development, but she became even more struck by the importance of these early interactions after taking a neuroscience class. “The idea that a child’s earliest interactions literally build the architecture of the developing brain was a powerful one,” she shared. “I realized that I could better support children’s learning and development if my research, teaching, and practice focused on how I could help to educate and support caregivers in understanding the importance of these early interactions.” 

To meet this goal, Dr. Clucas Walter conducts applied research, meaning she implements interventions intended to make a difference in the lives of families. One of her current projects is focused on helping parents increase the quantity and quality of language interactions with their child. To do this, she is implementing a program called LENA Start in DeKalb County and evaluating the conversational turns between parents and children. 

LENA Start is an evidence-based community program designed to help parents increase talk and interactions with their children under the age of three. Children in the program wear what Dr. Clucas Walter refers to as a “talk pedometer.” This device counts the child’s language exposure throughout the day in the same way that a pedometer counts steps. This way, parents are able to get feedback on the number of words their child is exposed to and the number of back-and-forth interactions they are having with their child. 

“The hope is that parents will learn specific strategies to help them increase talk and interactions with their children, as well as benefit from social support of learning in community with other parents of young children. These early interactions are the basis for communication and language development, which in turn are the foundation for school readiness and academic success,” explained Clucas Walter. 

Dr. Clucas Walter is actively recruiting families with children under three to participate in LENA Start. A new group of classes will begin in January. Interested parents may contact her at mcwalter@niu.edu to get involved. 

Dr. Clucas Walter is also examining what may interfere with the quality of parent-child interactions. One possible culprit is mobile devices. In a recent study, she found that parents were less responsive to their child when the parents were using technology. “I don’t expect parents to never use devices,” she stressed, “but it is important to recognize that these devices can interfere with quality interactions. Ideally, there are times throughout the day where the device is put away and we are able to give a child our undivided attention, even if it is just for 5-10 minutes at a time.” 

So, what are the implications of this research for parents of young children? 

According to Dr. Clucas Walter, “The ultimate goal of my research is to help caregivers understand the importance of their earliest interactions with children and to support them in engaging in high-quality and meaningful interactions.” She wants to spread the word that language shared between parents and children during simple, daily interactions plays a critical role in children’s development. 

About the author: Julia Ogg is on CISLL’s executive board and is an Associate Professor of Psychology at NIU.

One-Size-Fits-All or Tailored Reading Strategies? - Karyn Higgs

Karyn Higgs

Should students read textbooks using time-honored general reading strategies that apply to all classes, or should they use specific reading strategies based on the discipline of the particular class?

According to Dr. Karyn Higgs, a CISLL Research Scientist and executive board member, the answer is the latter: how you should read class materials depends on the discipline.

For example, if you are a student in a Psychology course, it is important to pay attention to theory and how a theory is supported by evidence gathered from experiments. However, if you are taking a course in History, the nature of evidence is different because it often comprises different types of documents (e.g., newspaper articles, diaries, letters, etc.).

This is called discipline-specific reading.

“Disciplines have different goals and needs,” explained Higgs. “Science classes have different goals than classes in the humanities, for example. Students need to know what to focus on in their reading if they are to be successful.”

According to Higgs, what students often lack is called a task model. A task model is an understanding of what the reader intends to achieve within the context, how they plan to go about it, and why it is important—for example, what is important to understand while reading for a class.

Higgs works closely with NIU professors Dr. Anne Britt and Dr. Amanda Durik who, together with Dr. Jean-Francois Rouet from the University of Poitiers, authored a book on task models. She also works with graduate students Katy Rupp and Taneisha Vilma.

In a series of ongoing studies, Higgs and her colleagues have been investigating task models for reading and learning within Psychology and how they relate to comprehension and test scores. In these studies, they have students read excerpts from psychology textbooks, take an exam on the material, and ask them about the reading strategies they used while reading.

They measure both general and discipline-specific strategies.

Examples of items that tap general strategies are:

• “I explained the text to myself to deepen my understanding.”


• “I thought about how the text connected to experiences in my own life.”

Examples of items that tap discipline-specific strategies are:

• “I focused on connecting the pieces of the theory across paragraphs.”


• “I thought about how the studies connected to the theories.”

Using hierarchical regression, Higgs and her colleagues found that the use of discipline-specific strategies predicted the exam results above and beyond the use of the general strategies.

This result suggests that discipline-specific reading strategies are important. However, students often need help in developing discipline-appropriate task models that help them to develop and use these discipline-specific strategies.

Currently the team is expanding this approach to some Introductory Psychology classrooms.

“We have been developing and testing interventions that we can use in classrooms. We want to teach our students how to effectively read Psychology textbooks,” elaborated Higgs.

According to their research, most students attend closely to concepts and their definitions in what they read, but not theory and evidence. In the interventions, Higgs’ team teaches students what is important in the discipline and strategies for taking notes on the theories that are presented. They also have students draw out the proposed explanations using what is called a causal model. A causal model is an organized series of mechanisms in a theory that explain an outcome.

You may remember a model of memory from your old Psychology class that has boxes containing memory components (e.g., sensory memory, short-term memory, and long-term memory) interconnected with arrows that depict the flow of information. If so, you are already familiar with causal models.

“Textbooks in Psychology describe many theories, but most of the time, they are conveyed only by words without an explicit causal model. Theory is often presented in pieces across paragraphs, interwoven with examples and information about classic experiments. Students need strategies to help them identify the parts of the theory and fit them together. We are exploring whether comprehension is increased by having students create causal models of the theories,” said Higgs.

Students may also need help to better understand how the evidence described in the text supports a theory. “Experiments usually only test one or two aspects of a theory. Students have difficulty trying to tie the description of experiments—the evidence—to the relevant part of the theory. They need to know which part of a theory an experiment tests,” explained Higgs.

Higgs and the larger research group is seeking to expand this line of research to other disciplines within science.

She hopes that, in the future, students in each class will know how to best read for that discipline. This skill is challenging because most reading programs only emphasize general strategies (e.g., visualizing, questioning, predicting, etc.).

“Although general reading strategies are helpful, they may not lead to deep comprehension that will allow students to evaluate and apply theories and to transfer this knowledge beyond the classroom. Students need exposure to how experts in the field read texts,” expanded Higgs.



If you are interested in learning more about this and related research, please attend Dr. Anne Britt’s Presidential Teaching Professor Seminar on Wednesday April 6 from noon to 1:00 in the University Suite, Holmes Student Center (2nd floor). The title of her talk is “Oh is THAT what you want?: Clarifying Student Expectations for our Assignments and Studying.”



About the author: Keith Millis is on CISLL’s executive board and is a Professor of Psychology at NIU.