Randomized Trial of LENA Home in A Home Visiting Program
Condition: Parent-Child Relations; Language Development
Study type: Interventional

Summary: 
      This study evaluates feasibility and efficacy of adding the LENA Home program to the standard
      Every Child Succeeds (ECS) home visiting curriculum. Half of the participants will receive
      the standard ECS curriculum during normally scheduled home visits, while the other half will
      receive this plus LENA Home.
    

Detailed description: 
      Every Child Succeeds is a program that uses home visiting as a preventive strategy to support
      low income families in providing stimulating, safe, and nurturing environments for their
      young children. Most families in home visiting have experienced adversity in their lives, and
      had inadequate parenting role models as they grew up. Home visitors visit families during
      pregnancy through the child reaching three years of age, providing information, teaching, and
      resources to help parents provide the best possible start for their children.

      LENA Home is a 13-week curriculum designed to add an early-language focus to existing home
      visiting or parent education programs for children ages birth to three. It employs LENA
      wearable audio recorder technology and targeted content to help parents and other caregivers
      increase interactive talk. There are 13 weekly one-on-one sessions, including modules on
      parent-child reading and increasing verbal interaction during typical home activities.
      Sessions include videos, practical techniques, and feedback from LENA recordings via
      intuitive reports to help parents talk more with their children. LENA Home reports provide
      data on adult words spoken to the child (AWC) and conversational turns (CTC). LENA Home has
      been shown to increase interactive talk and child language ability and informs parents how
      much they are talking with their children in an objective way.

      Upon completion of the study, we will have more information regarding whether (1) LENA Home
      can be successfully integrated into existing home visiting programs (feasibility), (2)
      children exposed to LENA have larger vocabularies than those who do not receive the
      intervention, (3) mothers using LENA engage in more literacy-promoting behaviors relative to
      controls, and (4) LENA improves parent-child interactions (utility).
    

Intervention name(s): LENA Home
Intervention type(s): Behavioral
Intervention description(s): LENA Home is a 13-week curriculum designed to add an early-language focus to existing home visiting or parent education programs for children ages birth to three. It employs LENA wearable audio recorder technology and targeted content to help parents and other caregivers increase interactive talk. There are 13 weekly one-on-one sessions, including modules on parent-child reading and increasing verbal interaction during typical home activities. Sessions include videos, practical techniques, and feedback from LENA recordings via intuitive reports to help parents talk more with their children. LENA Home reports provide data on adult words spoken to the child (AWC) and conversational turns (CTC). LENA Home has been shown to increase interactive talk and child language ability and informs parents how much they are talking with their children in an objective way.
Allocation: Randomized
Intervention model: Parallel Assignment
Intervention model description: This is a single-blind randomized trial with 2 groups.
Masking: Single (Participant)
Primary purpose: Prevention
Keywords: home visiting; LENA; infant language development; parenting