The effect of a parental mHealth resource on language outcomes in 4- to 5-year-old children

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Authors

Le Roux, Elizabeth Wilhelmina
Eccles, Renata
Abdoola, Shabnam Salim
Graham, Marien Alet
Van der Linde, Jeannie

Journal Title

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AOSIS

Abstract

BACKGROUND : The use of mobile health (mHealth) technology is rapidly expanding in healthcare worldwide. mHealth tools may provide parents with access to resources essential for promoting language development. AIM : The current study aimed to determine how an mHealth parental resource influenced 42 preschool children's (4.0-5.11 months old) language abilities after a 17-week intervention period. SETTING : Participants were identified from six early childhood development (ECD) centres from a low-income community in Tshwane, South Africa. METHOD : A randomised controlled trial (RCT), pre-test post-test research design was employed to determine whether an mHealth parental resource influenced 42 preschool children's (4.0-5.11 months old) language abilities after a 17-week intervention period. Data were collected using the language subtests of a South African standardised protocol, the Emergent Literacy and Language Assessment Protocol (ELLA). RESULTS : The parental mHealth application targeting language stimulation did not significantly improve the experimental group's language outcomes when compared with the control group because most of the parents (n = 27) used the application for less than 20% of the active days. CONCLUSION : Providing parents with more support with mobile resources may lead to improved usage of the application.

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Keywords

Parental resource, Language development, Preschool children, Mobile health (mHealth), Early childhood development (ECD)

Sustainable Development Goals

Citation

Le Roux, E.W., Eccles, R., Abdoola, S., Graham, M. & Van der Linde, J., 2022, ‘The effect of a parental mHealth resource on language outcomes in 4- to 5-year-old children’, South African Journal of Childhood Education 12(1), a1026. https://DOI.org/10.4102/sajce.v12i1.1026.