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.

NIU Professor is Motivated by Motivation - Stephen Tonks

Stephen Tonks

How much do you agree with the statements “I really like to read” and “I am good at reading”?

According to NIU Associate Professor of Educational Psychology Stephen Tonks in the College of Education, these statements are typical of many assessments of reading motivation.

“Motivation is something inside or outside us that drives us to action, and reading motivation is that which drives us to read,” explained Tonks. “Motivation involves beliefs about one’s abilities, one’s values, and one’s goals.”

Tonks should know: he is an expert on motivation and reading.

Motivation is not only of central interest to educators and researchers working in education and in psychology; it is routinely mentioned by laypersons in everyday life. We often say that a student lacks motivation if they do not complete assignments, miss class, or would rather spend hours playing video games than studying.

“‘Motivation’ is an abstract notion that helps us to explain behaviors. But because it is difficult to observe, it is normally measured by behaviors and what people tell us, usually in surveys,” elaborated Tonks.

Therein lies a challenge.

“Most surveys use general statements that reflect people’s traits. And they are also devoid of context. So, when someone answers the question ‘How much do you like to read?’, their answer might not reflect the fact that they absolutely love reading romance novels but hate reading other genres. If given the opportunity, the person would probably want to answer the question with something like, ‘It depends,’” reflected Tonks.

Did you experience this conflict at all when you answered the question?

The lack of context in the assessment may lead to measurement error and relatively low correlations with measures of reading comprehension, at least compared to cognitive measures that are much closer to reading, such as vocabulary knowledge.

This led Tonks to rethink how to measure and study reading motivation.

He is now exploring a situational approach to studying reading motivation that gives more context to the questions.

In a recently published study, he and his colleagues gave students passages to read immediately before having them answer questions regarding their motivation. The passages gave the students a context in which to answer the questions. Some questions were about their perceived competence in reading (e.g., “How successful were you in understanding the passages?”) and others were about their value of reading (e.g., “How useful were the passages to you?”). The researchers also derived measures of inferences from answers to questions that were periodically asked as students read the passages (e.g., “What are you thinking?”). The participants also completed assessments of foundational reading skills (e.g., vocabulary, syntactic knowledge) and reading comprehension.

“Interestingly, we found that the measure of reading value predicted the number of inferences they generated, and the number of inferences predicted reading comprehension. Foundational skills predicted reading value and perceived competence. Not surprisingly, the foundational skills also predicted reading comprehension,” summarized Tonks.

This and other emerging research is highlighting the fact that motivational constructs are related to basic reading skills necessary for comprehension, lending support to the usefulness of a situational approach.

“It was exciting to see that the motivation items predicted performance above and beyond the cognitive-related measures,” said Tonks. “Most surveys measuring motivation do not predict performance as well as expected given the importance of the construct.”

When asked ways to increase students’ motivation in the classroom, he offered some advice to instructors:

•  Try to play down rewards (extrinsic motivators) and play up intrinsic motivators by giving students some freedom as to how they approach the task;
• Make the material more interesting or engaging to your students; ask yourself, “How would I feel about doing this?”
• Try to highlight how the material is relevant to students;
• Ask them about their perceived competence (self-efficacy). If it is low, the instructor may encourage them to try their best, help them see the tasks as doable, and consider starting with tasks they can accomplish. He also remarked that students who need a motivational boost might seek out a personal, long-term purpose in the class.

Tonks is indeed motivated to study motivation. He is busy with his research that also includes motivation in other cultures and summarizing research for a general audience that includes teachers.

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