Incorporate social communication skill building into preschool interventions promoting school readiness¶

Strategy · All strategies
Evidence · 2 claims (2 for) · 1 study (1 associational), q3 · 0 of 1 report an effect size · 2 claims rest on one study

Description¶

The authors recommend that "strategies to build social communication skills be incorporated in preschool interventions promoting school readiness", alongside established vocabulary strategies. They suggest expanded interactive reading programs targeting children's question-asking, verbal turn-taking, and narrative skills, and interventions designed to promote teacher-child conversations. A home visiting program including interactive reading and social communication games improved receptive social communication skills in low-income children.

Design Implications¶

Context¶

Requirements¶

• Interventions should target both vocabulary and social communication, since the two contributed differentially to school success

Constraints¶

• Classroom-level evaluation of social communication interventions had not yet been conducted; clinical-population interventions should be explored in future research

Target Learners¶

• preschool children from economically-disadvantaged backgrounds

Target Learning Goals¶

• social communication skills
• vocabulary growth
• self-regulation
• kindergarten readiness

Affordances¶

• Structural Versus Social Communication Language Dimensions

Claims¶

• Social communication skills uniquely predict kindergarten executive functions after accounting for vocabulary, which does not predict EF [+W]
• Social communication skills uniquely predict teacher-rated kindergarten learning behaviors after accounting for vocabulary [+W]

Related Strategies¶

• Include attention difficulties and social skills in preschool academic screening, and consider prosocial components and feelings about school in early interventions

Examples¶

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Key Sources¶

• Ramsook K. Ashana, Welsh Janet A., Bierman Karen L. (2020). What you say, and how you say it: Preschoolers' growth in vocabulary and communication skills differentially predict kindergarten academic achievement and self‐regulation. Social Development, 29(3), 783–800. https://doi.org/10.1111/sode.12425