The grant will allow the associate professor of education to work with two Elon professors on finding strategies that are helpful, culturally relevant and easy for families to use to foster their infant's language development.
Associate Professor of Education Mary Knight-McKenna, along with co-principal investigators Heidi Hollingsworth, assistant professor of education, and Judy Esposito, associate professor of human service studies, received a grant for $21,100 from Impact Alamance for their project “Strong Beginnings for Babies.”
The project is focused on discovering strategies that are helpful, culturally relevant and easy for families to use to foster their infant’s language development. The children in the program will be slated to enter Title I schools up on kindergarten entry.
Using recording technology developed by the LENA Research Foundation, reports will be generated regarding the number of words spoken to the children and the number and duration of “serve and return” interactions. This information will provide the opportunity for families to set goals for increasing the length and number of interactions.
The project received $53,000 from Elon in matching funds.