Project to boost talking with babies
Katy Morton
Tuesday, October 13, 2009
A project to explore the most effective ways to encourage parents and carers to communicate more with their babies has been launched by the National Literacy Trust as part of its Talk to Your Baby campaign.
The two-year project, called Face to Face, funded by the Department for Children, Schools and Families, aims to identify key messages for parents and carers in relation to communicating with babies and young children, and to look at the most effective methods for delivering these messages.
Liz Attenborough, manager of Talk to Your Baby, said, 'New parents sometimes lack knowledge and understanding. Through this project we want to be able to make parents feel more confident in what they are doing and to make talking to your baby the cultural norm'.
The project is to be undertaken in three stages.
A research team from the University of Dundee has been commissioned to undertake stage one of the project, which will be completed next month.
The team, led by Professor Keith Topping, will collate all existing research and evidence on the importance of communicating with babies in order to identify any challenges and barriers in the way of new parents.
Stage two of the study will begin in December. A team of behaviour experts will analyse the most effective ways of spreading messages through public campaigns to determine what is most likely to encourage parents to communicate with their young children.
In the final stage, groups of parents will be asked what they believe are the key messages and the most effective ways of promoting these to improve outcomes for children.
A team of experts within the field will be consulted over the course of the project and will advise Talk to Your Baby on the progress of the research.
It is hoped that the project will inform the strategy for the National Year of Speech, Language and Communication in 2011 and future Talk to Your Baby work.
Further information: Visit www.literacytrust.org.uk
