Join in! Joint Engagement of Toddlers With a Developmental Language Disorder During Daily ParentChild Interactions
Summary
This study is the first to examine joint engagement (JE) among parents and their toddlers with a
developmental language disorder (DLD) during both storybook reading and play. JE are moments of
shared interest between parent and child, during which the parent can sensitively match the level of the
child, so that the child can develop language and learn to interact with others. The sample consisted of
a total of 25 toddlers, with and without a DLD, aged 24 to 48 months (M = 42.08; SD = 5.6) and one of
their parents. The parent-child duos were filmed during five minutes of play and while reading a
storybook. The Schlichting Receptive Language Test (SRLT) and Schlichting Expressive Language
Test (SELT) were administered to examine the children’s language abilities. Parents and their toddlers
with and without a DLD did not differ in their time spent in different engagement states during both
storybook reading and play. A preliminary finding, which should be interpretated with caution, is that
parents and their toddlers with a DLD did have briefer moments of coordinated JE during play compared
to the typical developing toddlers. Additionally, parents and their toddlers with a DLD did not have
briefer moments of coordinated JE during storybook reading compared to play. The results add on to
the importance of well attuned early interventions, as shown in previous research. For future research it
is recommended, among other things, to include and transcribe the linguistic interpretation of
engagement states.