The low rates of child literacy in South Africa
are cause for considerable concern. Research from the
developed world shows that parental sharing of picture
books with infants and young children is beneficial for child
language and cognitive development, as well as literacy
skills. We conducted a pilot study to examine whether such
benefits might extend to an impoverished community in
South Africa, by evaluating the impact of training mothers
in book sharing with their 14–18 month old infants. Seventeen
mothers received book sharing training; and 13
mothers did not, but instead received a comparison training
in toy play. We assessed the mothers’ behavior during both
book sharing and toy play before and after training, and we
also assessed infant attention and language. Mothers
receiving book sharing training engaged well with it, and
they also benefited from it; thus, compared to the comparison
group mothers, they became more sensitive, more
facilitating, and more elaborative with their infants during
book sharing, and they also became more sensitive to their
infants during toy play. In addition, infants whose mothers
received the book sharing training showed greater benefits
than the comparison group infants in both their attention and
language. Training in book sharing for families living in
conditions of marked socio-economic adversity in South Africa has the potential to be of considerable benefit to child developmental progress. A large scale controlled trial is
required to confirm this.

J78

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Tersedia

• Promoting Mother–Infant Book Sharing and Infant Attention and Language Development in an Impoverished South African Population: A Pilot Study

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