This study investigated the efficacy of an updated It Takes Two to Talk® Program, which included an emphasis on facilitating parents’ use of focused stimulation to improve their child’s expressive language skills. The study used a pre-test post-test control group design, with random assignment to an experimental group. Parents in the experimental group participated in It Takes Two to Talk and a delayed treatment control group was wait-listed for the program.

Parents learned all the responsive strategies typically covered in It Takes Two to Talk. In addition, each child was assigned 10 developmentally appropriate “target” vocabulary words based on their interests and phonemic repertoire. Parents were taught to use these words repeatedly with their child during everyday interactions and daily routines. They also learned to set up and create new routines in which the words could be repeated frequently and naturally. 

Participants

• It Takes Two to Talk (experimental) group

  12 children with severe expressive language delays (23 to 33 months) and their parents. Children had no more than 50 single words in their vocabularies, and most had significantly fewer than 50 words.

• Control group

  13 children with severe expressive language delays and their parents

Results & Key Findings

Parents who participated in It Takes Two to Talk used the target words spontaneously and frequently, while reducing mean length of utterance

• Parents who participated in It Takes Two to Talk used the target words spontaneously and frequently during interactions with their child compared with the control group. Parents used fewer words per minute and shorter sentences.

Children who participated in It Takes Two to Talk demonstrated accelerated vocabulary and language development, compared with the control group

• Compared with children in the control group, children who participated in It Takes Two to Talk demonstrated:
  • Larger vocabularies
  • Use of a greater number of different words
  • Use of more target words in interactive play contexts with their parents
  • Generalized use of target words to novel contexts
  • Use of more structurally complete and multi-word utterances

Changes in both children and their parents resulted from the It Takes Two to Talk Program, which “kick started” the children’s language development:

• When parents were responsive, children readily learned the target words as well as other words to which they were exposed incidentally.
• When children were talking more, they progressed rapidly to using longer phrases, suggesting continuity in development from single word use to the acquisition of word combinations (Girolametto, Pearce & Weitzman, 1996a, 1996b).