JMIR Publications

ABSTRACT

Background:

The connection between school and home is fundamental to sustainable education: parents’ understanding of the school’s priorities and teachers’ understanding of their pupils’ home environment are both vital for children to remain in school and succeed academically. The relationship between parents and teachers is closest in preschool settings, providing a valuable opportunity to build bridges between home and school. In this protocol paper, we outline our planned methods for identifying beneficial home and school behaviours.

Objective:

Our project aims to identify culture-specific structures and behaviours in home and school settings that influence the quantity and quality of child-directed speech, and identify positive experiences that can help to improve children’s linguistic development and nutrition.

Methods:

Using a mixed-methods approach and focusing on early language learning, nutrition, and responsive caregiving, we will video-record and analyse mealtime language and eating behaviours at home and in school, targeting 80 preschool children and their families in rural Kenya and Zambia. In addition, we will assess children's language skills through audio recordings and use questionnaire-based interviews to collect extensive sociodemographic and dietary data.

Results:

Between the start of our project in January, 2020 and the end of December, 2021, we had collected complete sets of sociodemographic, observational and food recall data for 40 children in Kenya and 16 children in Zambia. By the end of May, 2022, we had started data collection for an additional 24 children in Zambia and transcribed and coded around 85% of the data. By the end of September, 2022, we plan to complete data collection, transcription, and coding for the entire sample of 80 children across both countries. From September 2022 onwards, we will focus on analysing our language data, and we hope to have results ready for publication in early 2023. By relating children's language outcomes and nutritional intake to the observed mealtime behaviours, we hope to identify practices that increase the quantity and quality of child-directed speech and improve children's nutritional intake.

Conclusions:

Good nutrition and the promotion of language learning are key issues in early childhood development. By using a cross-cultural approach, combining a variety of methods, and working closely with stakeholders and policy makers throughout the project, we hope to find and share best practices for improving children's linguistic outcomes and nutrition and lay the foundation for the development of practitioner networks and parent outreach programmes.