Educational Psychology

ISSN: 0144-3410 (Print) 1469-5820 (Online) Journal homepage: https://www.tandfonline.com/loi/cedp20

A Comparison of the Expressive Language

Opportunities Provided by Shared Book Reading
and Facilitated Play for Young Children with Mild
to Moderate Intellectual Disabilities

Juli Davie & Coral Kemp

To cite this article: Juli Davie & Coral Kemp (2002) A Comparison of the Expressive Language
Opportunities Provided by Shared Book Reading and Facilitated Play for Young Children
with Mild to Moderate Intellectual Disabilities, Educational Psychology, 22:4, 445-460, DOI:
10.1080/0144341022000003123

To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/0144341022000003123

Published online: 02 Jul 2010.

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Educational Psychology, Vol. 22, No. 4, 2002

A Comparison of the Expressive Language

Opportunities Provided by Shared Book
Reading and Facilitated Play for Young
Children with Mild to Moderate Intellectual
Disabilities

JULI DAVIE & CORAL KEMP, Macquarie University Special Education Centre,
Sydney, Australia

ABSTRACT In this study, which aimed to compare the expressive language opportunities
provided by shared book reading and facilitated play, the language of 22 young children with
mild to moderate intellectual disabilities and delayed language was examined. The children
were videotaped while interacting with a facilitator during a session that included both book
reading and play. Two different protocols were used to analyse the children’s language in both
conditions. The Ž rst protocol was used to document the number of intelligible, unintelligible and
inaudible utterances and the second protocol was used to examine the intelligible utterances in
relation to their complexity and function. The Ž ndings indicated that shared book reading
elicited more language, more intelligible language and more complex language than the
facilitated play condition. Results also suggested that shared book reading allowed for more
conversational interaction between the children and the facilitators. The indications are that
shared book reading may provide better opportunities than facilitated play for collecting a
representative language sample from young children with mild to moderate intellectual disabil-
ities.

The potential beneŽ t of shared book reading to the development of language and
literacy skills in pre-schoolers has attracted the attention of researchers over the years
(see Scarborough & Dobrich, 1994 for a comprehensive review). Studies speciŽ cally
designed to investigate shared book reading as a language intervention for young
children are abundant (see, for example, Arnold & Whitehurst, 1994; Crain-Thoreson
& Dale, 1999; Dale & Crain-Thoreson, 1996; DeBaryshe, 1993; Karweit, 1989;
Kirchner, 1991; Lonigan, 1994; Mason, 1992; Mason, Kerr, Sinha & McCormick,

ISSN 0144-3410 print; ISSN 1469-046X online/02/040445-16 Ó 2002 Taylor & Francis Ltd
DOI: 10.1080/0144341022000003123
446 J. Davie & C. Kemp

1990; Mautte, 1990; Moerk, 1985; Ninio, 1983; Ratner, Parker, & Gardner, 1993;
Senechal & Cornell, 1993; Snow & GoldŽ eld, 1983). Shared book reading has also
been used as an intervention to promote receptive and expressive language skills in
disadvantaged pre-schoolers (Arnold, Lonigan, Whitehurst, & Epstein, 1994; Valdez-
Menchaca & Whitehurst, 1992; Whitehurst et al., 1994; Whitehurst et al., 1988). While
more recent research has suggested that there may also be beneŽ ts for young language
delayed children when speciŽ c shared book reading procedures are used (see, for
example, Crain-Thoreson & Dale. 1999; Dale & Crain-Thoreson, 1996) further
research is needed to study the effects of shared book reading on children with language
delays and/or intellectual disabilities.
Shared or joint book reading provides a natural opportunity for parents to facilitate
young children’s language and at the same time provides an optimal environment for
a child to learn language (Arnold & Whitehurst, 1994; Van-Kleeck, Gillam, Hamilton
& McGarth, 1997). During story time, children tend to talk more and adults use
modelling and feedback techniques to teach language skills (DeBaryshe, 1993; White-
hurst, Falco, Lonigan, Fischel, DeBaryshe, Valdez-Menchaca, & CaulŽ eld, 1988).
Additionally, language that parents direct towards children during reading is thought to
be more sophisticated than during other activities (Hoffs-Ginsberg, 1991).
The use of routines has also been shown to enhance language development (Ratner
et al., 1993) because the expectations of the child are clear in these situations (Warren,
1995). When a child is in a familiar environment, which a routine provides (Bernstein
& Tiegerman- Faber, 1997), he/she is more likely to attempt new language skills
(Ratner et al., 1993). This is particularly important for children with disabilities who are
easily distracted by novel stimuli (Warren, 1995). When a child is distracted, it is
difŽ cult to facilitate language interaction because the child’s attention is elsewhere and
not focussed on communicating. Children with intellectual disabilities have been
observed to produce more speech and more diverse vocabulary in familiar environ-
ments (Yoder & Davies, 1992). Routines, therefore, can provide frequent and practical
opportunities for new skills to be developed (Bricker & Wood Cripe, 1992). Snow and
GoldŽ eld (1983) have found that book reading can be an ideal routine because it is well
deŽ ned, frequently repeated and highly structured.
Joint attention is another important prerequisite for language acquisition (Tomasello
& Todd, 1983; Tomasello & Farrar, 1986). It occurs when the participants in an
activity are focussing on the same stimuli (Ratner et al., 1993). Shared book reading
provides a natural opportunity for joint attention between the reading partner and the
child. Moerk’s (1985) research on mother-child interaction during picture book activi-
ties demonstrated that shared book reading makes it easier to establish joint attention
because the focus is on the pictures on a speciŽ c page. The pictures then become
non-transient referents (Kemp, 1995) allowing the child and adult to refer back to
them, thereby enhancing understanding and providing opportunities for teaching and
learning. While sharing a book with a child, an adult is able to sit in close proximity
making it easier to monitor the child’s focus so that joint attention can be maintained.
Miller (1981) has proposed that the collection of spontaneous speech can potentially
provide a representative sample of a child’s language. He has suggested, however, that
providing a structured environment in which the language sample is to be collected
could negatively impact on the variety of language that the child produces. While this
may be the case for typically functioning children, children with intellectual disabilities
are likely to produce little or no language during unstructured play situations (Nelson,
1998). The clinician as facilitator may provide an acceptable alternative to a totally
 Shared Book Reading 447

unstructured environment. Miller has suggested one successful method of eliciting

spontaneous speech from a child is to have a clinician interact with the child while
he/she is engaged in play. The involvement of an adult in a play environment in a
one-to-one interaction with the child with a disability can serve to facilitate the child’s
language production. It remains to be seen whether the additional supports, for
example the joint attention and non-transient referents provided during shared book
reading opportunities can elicit clearer and more complex linguistic structures. This is
important both in the assessment of current language skills and also as a means of
intervening to improve levels of language production.
The need to explore alternative approaches to the assessment of language has been
acknowledged. The measurement of linguistic components is important when evaluat-
ing the impact of language interventions. Both standardised tests, and non-standardised
procedures that employ behavioural observations (Miller, 1981), are used to assess
language. Standardised tests are useful if the purpose of the assessment is to compare
a child’s language to that of his/her peers (Bernstein & Tiegerman- Faber, 1997). When
working with children with disabilities, standardised tests can be problematic for a
number of reasons. They may not provide samples of language that are representative
of the child’s spontaneous language performance (Arnold, Lonigan, Whitehurst, &
Epstein, 1994) nor are they likely to be sensitive to small gains in language develop-
ment. Furthermore, children who have intellectual disabilities may not respond in
formal assessment situations.
Language objectives will necessarily guide the selection of the language skills targeted
for assessment. For young children with mild to moderate intellectual disabilities,
language objectives should target the application of linguistic rules (McCormick &
Schiefelbusch, 1990). Linguistic rules include phonology, semantics, morphology,
syntax and pragmatics (McCormick & Schiefelbusch, 1990; Nelson, 1998). For this
population of children, valid and reliable measures of the appropriate components of
oral language need to be developed so that appropriate language goals are selected.
These measures should be sensitive, also, to small gains so that language interventions
can be closely monitored.
The present study sought to determine whether, for young children with mild to
moderate intellectual disabilities, shared book reading activities could elicit more
utterances, more intelligible utterances and more complex utterances than facilitated
play activities. Moreover, the study sought to ascertain whether shared book reading
could be used as a time efŽ cient, reliable and valid means of collecting a representative
speech sample from young children with these levels of disability. If more language,
more complex and more functional language is generated during shared book reading
then this routine provides opportunities for practising the language in addition to
evaluating it. Clearly, in these circumstances assessment and intervention are closely
aligned.

Method
Subjects/Setting
The subjects of this study were selected from 39 children (11 girls and 28 boys) ranging
in age from 4 to 6 years. All had intellectual disabilities and delayed language
development. Every year potential and current students in Macquarie University
Special Education Centre’s Early School programme are assessed in order to evaluate
448 J. Davie & C. Kemp

TABLE I. Subject description

Subject Sex Age Diagnosed disability Level of disability

1 F 5y7 Down syndrome Moderate

2 F 5y1 Global delay Moderate
3 M 4y 11 Global delay Moderate
5y 8
4 F 5y 2 Down syndrome Moderate
5 M 6y8 Down syndrome Moderate
6 M 5y 8 Global delay/autistic features Moderate
7 M 4y 10 Down syndrome Moderate
8 M 4y 8 Down syndrome Moderate
9 M 4y 6 Global delay Mild
10 F 4y 8 Tuberous sclerosis Moderate
11 F 4y 9 Down syndrome Moderate
12 M 4y 9 Autism spectrum disorder Moderate
13 M 5y 7 Down syndrome Moderate
14 M 5y 1 Down syndrome Moderate
15 M 5Y 6 Down syndrome Moderate
16 M 4y 10 Down syndrome Moderate
17 F 5y 7 Chromosomal disorder Moderate
18 M 5y 5 Global delay Moderate
19 M 5y 8 Autism spectrum disorder Moderate
20 M 5y 2 Down syndrome Moderate
21 M 4y 11 Autism spectrum disorder Moderate
22 M 5y Global delay/autistic features Moderate

Note: Subject 2 was videoed on two occasions.

their language and play skills. In some instances these assessments are repeated towards
the end of the year for children accessing the programme in order to provide a record
of progress. All assessments were videotaped. It was from these videotapes that the
initial group of subjects for this study was selected. Of the available children, 22 (6 girls
and 16 boys) met the criteria for Ž nal selection as research subjects. For one of the boys
assessed on two occasions, both sessions were included in the study. Table I presents
detailed information on the children whose data were included in the analysis.
The Early School programme is part of Macquarie University Special Education
Centre’s Early Years initiative. The Centre is located in the grounds of Macquarie
University in New South Wales, Australia and follows a non-categorical approach to
education (see Wheldall, 1994 and Wheldall & Carter 1996 for a discussion of
non-categorical approach to teaching students with special education needs). Early
School is a research-based programme and operates an inclusive model whereby young
school-aged children, with a variety of disabilities, are taught alongside young children
who are developing at a typical or advanced rate. The curriculum is taught in a
naturalistic setting and aims to prepare students for mainstream classrooms in the
following year.

Materials/Equipment
In order to evaluate the language and play skills of each of the subjects, a structured/
facilitated play method was employed whereby a facilitator interacted with the child for
approximately 20 minutes. The same kinds of activities and items were used for each
 Shared Book Reading 449

of the children. The materials were chosen to promote interaction between the child
and the facilitator and to encourage quiet and non-repetitive play. Items such as puzzles
and cars were not used since these activities tend to produce solitary and perseverative
play. The materials that were used included pre-selected children’s books (i.e. those
with action pictures that were not too busy as well as  ap books), a selection of
home-corner items including doll, clothes, bed, table and chairs, telephone, eating and
drinking utensils, and farm or zoo animals and puppets. Communicative temptation
techniques were also used to elicit language (see Wetherby & Prizant, 1993 for a
detailed description of these techniques). For instance, the facilitator would blow up a
balloon or blow bubbles, give the item to the child, then wait for the child to ask her
to blow up the balloon or blow bubbles again. A jar of sweets was also available to
encourage language. The facilitator would eat one sweet, replace the lid tightly and give
the jar to the child. She would then wait for the child to ask her to remove the lid.
Communicative temptations were generally used at the end of the session since it
provided a natural closure to ‘play time’.

Dependent Variables
Phonology, morphology, syntax, semantics and pragmatics are thought to be important
components of language (Bernstein & Tiegerman-Farber, 1997).
Phonology, which governs sounds and their distribution and sequence in language
(Bernstein & Tiegerman-Farber, 1997), was measured by counting and comparing the
number of utterances (intelligible and unintelligible) produced in the two conditions.
Morphology was measured by recording the number of morphemes in each intelligible
utterance. The syntax and semantic components of language were measured and
compared in relation to the function/meaning of each intelligible utterance. Finally, in
order to explore one aspect of pragmatics, conversational interaction (Fey, 1986) was
measured by recording whether each utterance was an imitation, response or initiation.
By recording the number of imitations, responses or initiations, the degree of spon-
taneous language was compared in the two conditions. Imitation can be considered to
be the least spontaneous while initiation can be considered the most spontaneous form
of language.

Procedure
The assessments took place in one of three locations at the Special Education Centre.
One location was a large lecture room, another location was a pre-school classroom
(not in use at the time) and the third location was a small clinic room. If a large room
was used for taping, tables were set up in order to isolate a section of the room so that
the child and materials were contained in a small area.
At the beginning of the session the child was asked if he/she would like to play with
the facilitator. When the child came into the room he/she was introduced to the person
videotaping the assessment and was allowed to touch the camera if interest was shown.
The person videotaping located herself so as to limit the potential for interference with
the interaction between the facilitator and child. If the facilitator was unfamiliar to the
child, the child’s parents and sometimes siblings were present for the duration of the
assessment. Following the initial introductions the child was shown the toys, which
were placed around the room, and asked which one he/she wanted to play with Ž rst.
Input from a speech pathologist was used to develop approaches that would optimise
450 J. Davie & C. Kemp

language production in the child. Research has shown that children use more language
in situations that they have chosen or in which they demonstrate some interest
(Tomasello & Todd, 1983; Mahoney & Neville-Smith, 1996). Tomasello and Todd
(1983) found a positive correlation between child directed joint attention and greater
word learning. Mahoney and Neville-Smith’s (1996) study of young children with
Down syndrome and their mothers provided support for the belief that directives
relating to the child’s focus of attention are highly effective in gaining that child’s
participation in communication with the adult. Wherever possible, therefore, the child’s
lead was followed during the session. However, there is also some evidence to suggest
that being directive with children who have very limited language is advantageous since
it keeps these children as active participants (Iacono, 1996). Therefore, if the child had
become perseverative with a toy that he/she had chosen, the facilitator would imitate
what the child was doing, or model a modiŽ ed representation of what the child was
doing or introduce another toy into the existing play to create a new direction. If the
child continued to be perseverative, the facilitator would move the child to a new set of
toys by saying, ‘Let’s try this now …’ and would remove the toy from the child’s
attention.
Additional strategies were employed to elicit language. The facilitator asked open-
ended questions requiring more than a yes/no response from the child. Forced choice
questions were asked such as ‘Is it or is it ?’. Last words in sentences were
sometimes omitted to encourage a response from the child and occasionally the
facilitator would make comments and wait rather than always asking questions. These
evocative techniques were used to ensure that the child took an active role in the
interaction (Arnold & Whitehurst, 1994; Whitehurst et al., 1988).
Three different facilitators were used for the assessments. Two of the facilitators were
qualiŽ ed special education teachers. Both had completed a postgraduate qualiŽ cation
in Special Education and were teaching at the Special Education Centre. The third
facilitator was an experienced early childhood trained teacher. She had many years of
experience working in different areas of the Special Education Centre and was experi-
enced in working with children with a wide range of abilities.
Because the purpose of the original assessment was to evaluate the play and language
skills of the children, the facilitators were interested in obtaining an equal amount of
language from both shared book reading and free play. There was no bias on the part
of the facilitators because the videos were used retrospectively in this study. The order
of the book reading and play sessions was varied. In a number of instances there was
more than one session of play and shared book reading occurring during a single
assessment. This being the case, it was possible to manipulate the order in which each
session occurred. For 15 of the subjects, the play session occurred Ž rst and for 8 of
them the book reading session occurred Ž rst.

Selection of Subjects
Not all subjects were included in the Ž nal analysis. The criterion for selection of videos
for analysis included the sound quality of the tape and the child’s audibility on the tape.
Some of the videotapes were old and therefore the sound was distorted and some of
the children spoke in whispered tones. Both of these conditions made it difŽ cult to code
the language produced. Subjects were also excluded if they were not familiar to the
facilitator and their parents were not present. One potential subject was excluded
 Shared Book Reading 451

TABLE II. Language functions

Function Description Example

Negation/afŽ rmation Yes or No

Yes
Non-existence An object disappears All gone
Recurrence Requests/comments on repetition More
of activity
Location Location of an object Up, there
Action Comment/request action Eat, run
Agent Individual performing an action. If the Daddy run
child only said a name of a person or
thing then it was recorded as an object.
Possession Ownership Mine
Object Name object or person Bottle, mummy
Social response A comment that is used in a social Hi/bye, Um, Ow (for
context ouch)
ModiŽ er Adjective/adverb Big, green

Based on deŽ nitions in McCormick & Schiefelbusch (1990).

because it was difŽ cult to isolate his language from that of his sibling who was also
present for the assessment.
For the purpose of analysing and comparing language production in the two condi-
tions, 3 min of language elicited during facilitated play and 3 min during shared book
reading were examined for each of the children. A 30 s lead-time for each of the
activities was needed so that it was clear when the activity began. The lead-time also
gave the child time to ‘warm’ to the activity. This meant that a child who did not spend
an uninterrupted 3 min and 30 s at both a play activity and book activity was excluded
from the Ž nal selection of subjects.

Development of Protocols
To compare play and shared book reading, observational protocols were developed to
record language. Different protocols were trialled until one was found that was sensitive
to the information needed and was quick and reliable. To determine this, the Ž rst and
second authors together viewed several videos using various versions of protocols to
code language. When a version was found that suited the purpose of the study, the
researchers independently coded a language sample and compared the results to gauge
the reliability of the protocol. See Appendix A for a copy of the protocol Ž nally used in
the study.
To further investigate language in facilitated play and shared book reading, a second
protocol (see Appendix B) was used to analyse the intelligible utterances. This coding
sheet was a modiŽ ed version of a recording form, used by McCormick and Schiefel-
busch (1990). Descriptions and examples of the different functions that were analysed
are found in Table II.

Inter-rater Reliability
Inter-rater reliability checks were conducted on 8 (more than one third) of the
videotapes. Eight tapes were chosen, based on the level of language of the subjects, in
452 J. Davie & C. Kemp

order to ensure that a variety was checked. One low-level language, Ž ve medium level
language and two high-level language subjects were used in the reliability checks. The
subjects were rated as having low, medium or high levels of language by averaging the
number of utterances produced in the two conditions. Low language was considered as
being 0–19 utterances, medium level was 20–35 and high-level language was 36 or
more utterances.

Reliability for Measures of Conversational Interaction

A qualiŽ ed speech pathologist implemented reliability checks on the selected subjects
in order to measure inter-rater reliability for conversational interaction. The speech
pathologist used the researcher’s transcript of utterances to code whether the utterances
were imitation, response or initiation. She viewed the chosen tapes with the transcript
so that contextual cues could be considered. The degree of reliability was calculated
across the entire group for book reading and facilitated play by using the following
formula:

Number of agreements across subjects

3 100
Number of agreements 1 number of disagreements across subjects

Reliability for Number of Morphemes and the Word Functions in Intelligible Utterances
Inter-rater reliability checks on the same eight subjects were performed to determine
the degree of reliability in relation to the number of morphemes and the word functions
included in each intelligible utterance. A special educator experienced in collecting and
analysing language scripts used the researcher’s transcript to code intelligible utterances
onto the second protocol sheet (see Appendix B).

Reliability for number of morphemes. Point-by-point agreement was calculated for the
number of morphemes in each intelligible utterance for each subject in shared book
reading and facilitated play using the following formula:

Agreements
3 100
Total number of intelligible utterances
The degree of reliability was calculated across the eight subjects in each condition by
averaging the percentages of the group.

Reliability for presence of word functions. Point-by-point agreement for each intelligible
utterance for the presence and absence of each word function was calculated. A
percentage was calculated for each function by using the following formula:

Agreements
3 100
Total number of intelligible utterances
An overall score was then calculated for each subject by adding the percentages of each
word function and dividing by 12 (the total number of different word functions). A
total group reliability score was then calculated across all word functions by adding
each subject’s overall word function percentage and dividing by 8 (the total number of
subjects included). The degree of reliability for each word function was also calculated
by averaging the percentages for each word function across all subjects.
 Shared Book Reading 453

TABLE III. Inter-rater reliability for the different word functions across
subjects in shared book reading and facilitated play

Play Book

Functions % Range % Range

Negation/afŽ rm 98 83–100 99.5 91–100

Non–existence 100 99 91–100
Recurrence 100 99 95–100
Location 100 96 72–100
Action 98.5 88–100 96 84–100
Agent 99.5 96–100 96 88–100
Possession 100 99 92–100
Object 97 83–100 93 81–100
Social response 100 98 94–100
Question 100 99.6 97–100
ModiŽ er 100 96 90–100
Other 98 87–100 99 94–100

Results
Inter-Rater Reliability
Conversational interaction. The degree of reliability for the conversation interaction of
language was 87% (67–97) for book reading and 87% (0–95) for facilitated play. The
subject for whom an inter-rater reliability of 67% was calculated for book reading
produced only 6 utterances and the subject for whom inter-rater reliability was 0% for
facilitated play produced only 2 utterances. Such low levels of language production will
necessarily impact on levels of inter-rater reliability.

Number of morphemes. The degree of reliability for the number of morphemes in each
intelligible utterance across subjects was 98.5% (98–100) for shared book reading and
95.5% (78–100) for facilitated play.

Function of Intelligible Utterances. The degree of reliability across word functions for
shared book reading and facilitated play was 97.5% (95–100) and 99% (97–100)
respectively. Inter-rater reliability for each word function across all subjects is found in
Table III.

Comparison of Play and Book-reading Conditions

Paired t-tests were used to determine whether there were signiŽ cant differences
between the number of utterances and the number of intelligible utterances recorded
for the children in facilitated play and shared book conditions. The results revealed
signiŽ cant differences in both the number of utterances recorded ( t(22) 5 2 3.256,
p 5 0.0036 ) and the number of intelligible utterances documented (t(22) 5 2 2.953,
p 5 0.0073) with the greater number of utterances and intelligible utterances being
recorded in the book condition (see Table IV).
To assess the complexity of utterances, the number of morphemes in each utterance
were recorded as single, two, three and four or more morphemes. The mean number
of morphemes was calculated for each category in both facilitated play and book
reading. The results show that the mean number of single morphemes was greater in
454 J. Davie & C. Kemp

TABLE IV. Summary data for utterances and intelligible utterances

Play Book

Linguistic variables M SD M SD

No utterances 21.35* 14.7 29.7* 13.8

No intelligible utterances 13.0* 10.5 18.8* 10.8

P, 0.01.

the book reading condition (M 5 10.04, SD 5 6.12) than in the facilitated play con-
dition (M 5 7.6, SD 5 6.15). A paired t-test, however, did not reveal a statistically
signiŽ cant difference. An effect size, therefore, was calculated to determine whether or
not the difference in mean number of utterances had clinical signiŽ cance. This was
calculated by dividing the mean difference by the standard deviation of the facilitated
play condition. An effect size of 0.4 indicated that the difference was of moderate
clinical signiŽ cance.
Due to the fact that the occurrence of three and four morpheme utterances was too
low to make a meaningful comparison between the two conditions, all utterances of two
or more morphemes were classiŽ ed as ‘2 1 ’. A paired t-test was used to determine
whether or not there was a difference between the conditions in relation to the
production of ‘2 1 ’ morpheme utterances. The result of this analysis yielded a statisti-
cally signiŽ cant group difference, (t(22) 5 2.340, p , 0.05) with the greater number of
‘2 1 ’ morpheme utterances occurring in the shared book-reading condition. An effect
size of 0.52 was calculated, again indicating there to be a moderate clinically signiŽ cant
difference. Table V provides the summary of the differences between the numbers of
morphemes per utterance in each of the two conditions.
To evaluate the variety of language produced in both conditions, the range of
functions was calculated for each of the subjects in facilitated play and shared book
reading (see Table VI). A paired t-test was then used to determine whether or not there

TABLE V. Summary data for complexity of utterances in shared book reading and
facilitated play

Play Book

Number of morphemes M SD Range M SD Range

Single 7.6 6.1 0–21 10.0 6.1 0–25

Two 1 5.4* 5.8 0–17 8.4* 7.3 0–26

*P , 0.05.

TABLE VI. Summary data for variety of language in shared

book reading and facilitated play

Play Book

M SD M SD

Variety of functions 4.2 3 5 2.7

 Shared Book Reading 455

TABLE VII. Descriptive statistics for the different word functions in shared book reading and
facilitated play

Play Book

Functions M SD Range M SD Range

Negation/afŽ rm 2.8 3.4 0–12 2.9 3.7 0–12

Non–existence 0.22 0.67 0–3 0 0 0
Recurrence 0.17 0.58 0–2 0.17 0.49 0–2
Location 0.87 1.5 0–6 2.4 3 0–10
Action 3.0 3.4 0–12 4.7 4.4 0–15
Agent 1.2 2.3 0–10 2 3.1 0–11
Possession 0.26 0.54 0–2 0.44 1.1 0–5
Object 5.4 5.3 0–20 9.7 5.3 0–21
Social response 1.2 2.0 0–7 0.52 0.67 0–2
Question 0.17 0.5 0–2 0.5 0.73 0–3
ModiŽ er 0.74 0.92 0–3 1.7 2.6 0–10

TABLE VIII. Summary data for the degree of spontaneous

language in shared book reading and facilitated play

Play Book

M SD M SD

Initiation 12.78 8.94 17.0 11.34

Imitation 1.21 2.30 1.35 1.61
Response 7.58* 7.03 11.39* 8.20

*P , 0.01.

was a difference between the range of functions used in each condition. The result of
this analysis did not yield a signiŽ cant group difference, although the trend was towards
signiŽ cance (t(22) 5 2.033, p 5 0.0543). Summary data for the different word functions
is found in Table VII.
The degree of conversational interaction and the degree of spontaneity of language
were examined by coding the number of imitations, initiations and responses
performed by the subjects during facilitated play and shared book reading. Means
and standard deviations for these factors are summarised in Table VIII. The largest
discrepancy between the two conditions was evident in the mean number of
responses for shared book reading versus facilitated play. The mean number of
initiations was also greater in book reading compared to facilitated play. Paired t-tests
were used to determine whether there were signiŽ cant group differences between the
number of responses, number of initiations and number of imitations recorded for the
children in facilitated play and book conditions. The results revealed a signiŽ cant
group difference in the number of responses recorded (t(22) 5 3.078, p 5 0.005)
with the greater number of responses being recorded in the book condition. There
were no signiŽ cant group differences for number of initiations or imitations (see Table
VIII).
456 J. Davie & C. Kemp

Discussion
The research question posed in this study was whether shared book reading could be
used to facilitate more language and more intelligible language in young children with
mild to moderate intellectual disabilities and delayed speech when compared to
facilitated play. Shared book reading did, in fact, produce signiŽ cantly more utterances
and more intelligible utterances than the facilitated play condition. While there was not
a statistically signiŽ cant difference found in the number of single morphemes produced
in either condition, a moderate clinical difference was found and there were
signiŽ cantly more ‘2 1 ’ morpheme utterances produced during shared book reading.
This Ž nding indicates that shared book reading facilitated more complex utterances
than facilitated play. These results support the use of shared book reading as a means
of collecting useful language samples from children who have mild-moderate intellec-
tual disabilities.
Language samples should be representative of a child’s everyday or typical use of
language. They should also be used to gauge the optimum use of language, that is, what
a child is capable of doing given assistance (Bernstein & Tiegerman-Farber, 1997).
This would allow the most appropriate language goals to be determined. Given that
certain elicitation procedures were used by the facilitator (comments, open- ended
questions, forced choice questions, omissions) during both shared book reading and
facilitated play, the same opportunities for the subjects to demonstrate typical language
use and optimum language use were available. The results suggest that shared book
reading not only produced more language but also more complex language. This
indicates that shared book reading may provide a more effective means of observing
young children’s typical language use as well as providing opportunities for them to
demonstrate the language that they are capable of producing with assistance.
The degree of conversational interaction was measured by determining whether each
utterance produced was an imitation, response or initiation. While there was no
statistical difference between the two conditions for the number of child initiations,
shared book reading did produce a higher number of responses than facilitated play.
Having the children respond more to the facilitator indicates that joint attention, which
is a vital component of language learning (Tomasello & Todd, 1983; Tomasello &
Farrar, 1986), was evident during the interaction in shared book reading. This Ž nding
supports the research conducted by Morek (1995) who showed that book reading
makes it easier to establish joint attention.
A surprising result of this study was the fact that there was no statistical difference
between the two conditions in the number of imitations of adult language. Given the
potential for adult language to dominate during shared book reading (Dale & Crain-
Thoreson, 1996), one might expect that this condition would provide more opportuni-
ties for the child to imitate. Imitation is less spontaneous than either initiation or
response. Since shared book reading did not produce more imitation it appears that
book reading did not inhibit the use of spontaneous language. Using shared book
reading to obtain language samples from children with mild to moderate intellectual
disabilities, therefore, may provide a better alternative to standardised tests than other
naturalistic or routine conditions, in particular facilitated play.
Although the results of the research suggest that a representative language sample can
be collected through shared book reading, further research is needed to determine
whether this will provide an assessment of language that will effectively guide pro-
gramme development. Such an assessment would need to be a criterion-referenced and
 Shared Book Reading 457

would involve a ‘test-teach-test’ cycle (Neisworth & Bagnato, 1988). Once language
from a book reading session is recorded, appropriate language goals need to be
determined and an intervention implemented. Small language gains, which are not
sensitive to measure by standardised tests, will then need to be monitored.
The current study involved a very small number of subjects with mild to moderate
intellectual disabilities. Further studies will need to be conducted using a larger and
more diverse population of children so that the impact of the type of and severity of
disabilities can also be examined. Whilst this is a small study, the results indicate that
using shared book reading may assist in the assessment of the language skills of young
children with intellectual disabilities and may provide a better assessment than facili-
tated play activities. There is considerable research focussing on the value of shared
book reading in the development of language skills in disadvantaged and typically
developing pre-schoolers. There is, however, a lack of similar research involving
children with intellectual disabilities. This study represents a preliminary attempt to
address this population.

Correspondence: Coral Kemp, Macquarie University Special Education Centre,

Macquarie University, Sydney Australia, 2109. (e-mail: coral.kemp@
speced.sed.mq.edu.au).

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Appendix A
460 J. Davie & C. Kemp

Appendix B