Three studies published this year have shown the relationship between conversational turns and brain development. Join us for a discussion with the lead researchers, Drs. Jill Gilkerson and Rachel Romeo, moderated by Shannon Rudisill of the Early Childhood Funders Collaborative.
Join LENA’s president, Dr. Steve Hannon, as he hosts a conversation with Dr. Rachel Romeo, lead author on a study from Harvard and MIT that sheds light into the underlying neural mechanism that makes conversational turns so critical for brain development.
Learn more about LENA SP, a tool for researchers, clinicians, language professionals, and others who need detailed, scientifically reliable speech-language measurements of children 2 months to 48 months old.
Children whose families participated in LENA Start are showing elevated language skills one year after the program, an analysis of longitudinal data shows.
Three new studies highlight how reading supports brain growth and cognitive function.
Research by Dr. Eric Walle and Dr. Anne Warlaumont on the relationship between child language development and movement is featured in a new Netflix documentary, Babies.
Explore research-based strategies for helping children overcome adversity.
A new clinical trial will use LENA SP to evaluate the effectiveness of a speech-language intervention for infants with a known genetic risk factor for speech and language delays.
Families who participated in LENA Start provided increasingly rich home language environments for their children, expanding how much they talked to and with them over the duration of the three-month class, compared to families who did not attend, a new study has found.
Three new studies provide insight into how children learn during the first months and years of life.
We’re answering questions submitted during our webinar about how to create equitable and inclusive classroom experiences for children with Dr. Iheoma Iruka of HighScope, Ellen Roche of Trust for Learning, and Lauren Cooper from LENA.
Parents’ brainwaves track and respond to changes in their infant’s brain activity when they play together.
A new study exploring associations between family socioeconomic background, children’s brain structure, and children’s reading skills indicates that children who experience more conversational turns may have increased brain growth, and in turn, better reading skills.
Promising new data show that children whose families participated in LENA Start, a parent-group program focused on increasing early talk, demonstrated considerably higher early literacy scores and were far more likely to be at an advanced literacy level entering pre-K.
Teachstone’s senior research advisor discusses the state of early childhood classrooms, challenges and opportunities for growth, and answers common questions about CLASS.
Learn how different scientists are using LENA technology to better understand how children learn and develop and in what type of environment they thrive.
Dr. Zimmerman explains his latest research into how environments and external factors affect population health and child development.
UCLA professor Dr. Frederick Zimmerman explains his 2009 research which indicates conversational turns have unique power to boost child language development.
Read summaries of three newly-published studies exploring how young children develop and acquire language.
Read the latest studies exploring how everything from a child’s socioeconomic status to the hours they spend looking at a screen are related to their brain development.
New grant opportunities are making it possible to adopt data-informed strategies for ensuring that we can look forward to a time when every child’s day is filled with wonderful, nourishing conversation.
In 2018, researchers published three studies examining the long- and short-term effects of interactive talk. Here we’ve answered the top questions on the role of conversational turns in child development.
Read about how LENA technology is facilitating new research breakthroughs.
Parent Traci Martin shares strategies for unpacking new research with parents, teachers, and caregivers.
Megan Carolan, Director of Policy Research at the Institute for Child Success, shares how families, schools, and communities can all play a role in driving child language development.
10-year longitudinal study published in Pediatrics correlates interactive talk in early childhood with later cognitive outcomes.
The first research showing a relationship between conversational turns and brain structure has ben published in JNeurosci. The paper investigates how back and forth interaction between children and their adult caregivers relate to white matter connectivity in the brain.
A professor who uses LENA technology to study the relationship between children’s motor development and language development is featured in Netflix’s new series, Babies.
About 100 federal, national, state, and local leaders – including LENA president, Steve Hannon — shared ideas for innovation in early childhood at a recent event hosted by the Office of Early Childhood Development.
The former vice president correctly referred to recent research about poor children hearing 4 million fewer words, on average, than those in wealthier families, said Jill Gilkerson, the lead author of a 2017 study that the Biden campaign says he was citing. But she adds that there’s way more to the story when it comes to increasing a child’s verbal ability and IQ through early language.
The more words autistic children hear as infants — and the more verbal interactions they have with their caregivers — the better their language skills at age 2, a new study suggests.
A new study will evaluate the feasibility and efficacy of adding the LENA Home program to the standard Every Child Succeeds (ECS) home visiting curriculum.
Using LENA technology, researchers have discovered new insights into children’s home language environments.
Research shows that using “Motherese” — a form of communication with a higher pitch, more variability in tones, and lots of repetition — helps babies learn language.
Advice columnist Mr. Dad shares tips to help your child develop verbal skills.
Speech and language researchers at Arizona State University's College of Health Solutions, together with collaborators at Washington State University, have received a National Institutes of Health grant of almost $1 million to use LENA technology in a study that will try to prevent speech and language problems before they happen.
New research finds parents who frequently talk to toddlers not only help improve their child’s vocabulary, but they also give nonverbal abilities like reasoning and numerical understanding a boost.
The findings of a recent long-term study by LENA researchers confirms two-way interaction between adults and infants correlates with increased IQ, verbal comprehension, vocabulary and other language skills 10 years later.
A new study from the University of Washington shows that coaching parents on how to talk with their babies positively affects child development.
Two doctors reviewed the LENA Longitudinal Study and noted its contribution to the field and implications for pediatric policy and clinical practice.
Children’s frequency of conversation with adults predicts language skills and IQ a decade later, according to a new study from LENA researchers.
A 10-year study by LENA researchers confirms that the amount of talk with adults that babies experience in the first three years of life is related to their verbal abilities and IQ in adolescence.
A team of researchers led by Jill Gilkerson, director of child language research at the LENA Foundation, looked at the effect talking to your baby might have on their later success.
Having conversations with toddlers has been linked to higher IQ scores and better language skills by the time they reach school, a new study suggests.
A 10-year study by LENA shows that the amount of talk with adults that babies experience in the first three years of life is related to their verbal abilities and IQ in adolescence.
Early conversation with toddlers is linked to better language skills and higher IQ scores later in life, according to a new study.
Study shows that conversational turns with teachers are positively related to language skills in children who are high-risk.
Using LENA technology, scientists at MIT discovered a relationship between conversational turns and children’s language development.
LENA partnered with Danone Nutricia Research to develop an expanded LENA capability to automatically detect and categorize crying and fussing in infants.
Verbal engagement can influence child development more strongly than parental income or education, study shows
Researchers at Purdue University are including LENA technology in a “telehealth” kit for better understanding early risk factors for autism.
Researchers at MIT use LENA technology to study brain activity and the importance of conversational turns to language development.
Researchers at MIT used LENA technology to find that the amount of conversational turns is more strongly related to positive language development than the number of adult words spoken to a child.
As talk is found to be increasingly important to the development of childhood linguistic and cognitive development, more communities are using programs like LENA to improve communication behaviors in families.
CBC Radio interviews Jill Gilkerson from LENA, explaining the importance of interactive talk between children and their caregivers.
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