A narrative review of caregiver training programmes aimed to improve child language development in low-resource African communities

Thesis

Most children in Southern and Eastern Africa are not reaching their language and literacy milestones at expected rates, hindering future development from a personal and economic perspective (UNESCO, 2019). Children learn through their interactions with their caregivers. There is potential for caregivers to positively impact their child’s development, through their daily interactions and caregiving practices. The aim of this study was to determine what caregiver training programmes have empirical evidence regarding their level of effectiveness on child language and literacy outcomes and what is the quality of these programmes. The study is a narrative review of eligible caregiver training programmes from Southern and East African contexts, which aim to improve child language or literacy outcomes. A total of 905 studies were initially found from database and grey literature searches. A total of nine studies were screened to be eligible for inclusion in this review. The results of the study showed that there are effective caregiver training programmes in Southern and East Africa which show short term effects on child language or literacy outcomes, but the results show that the research studies fail to assess the medium to long term impact of the caregiver training programmes on child language or literacy outcomes. The results show that eligible training programmes do not align with all the optimal components of design and implementation, which implies that there is potential for caregiver training programmes to improve by increasing intensity, improving supervision, utilizing effective teaching strategies, and ensuring deep structural sensitivity of the programme is achieved.

Authors: Dreyer, E

• DOI: 10.5287/ora-eobmm7kmo
• Type of award: MSc taught course
• Level of award: Masters
• Awarding institution: University of Oxford
• Language: English
• Keywords: reading; child development; preschool; language development; parent; learning
• Subjects: child development; education