Implementing Remote Developmental Research: A Case Study of a Randomized Controlled Trial Language Intervention During COVID-19

At-home use of app-based mindfulness for children: A randomized active-controlled trial

Objectives

School-based mindfulness interventions in children have shown benefits to child well-being. Here, we investigated the effectiveness of a remote, app-based mindfulness intervention for promoting well-being in children.

Methods

We conducted a randomized controlled trial (RCT) with two control groups to examine the effects of an 8-week mindfulness intervention in U.S. children ages 8-10. We compared pre-post effects between a mindfulness intervention using the Inner Explorer app, and two audiobook control interventions. The 279 children who participated in the interventions were assessed on self-report measures of anxiety and depression symptoms, perceived stress and trait mindfulness and we also collected parental reports.

Results

Over 80% of children completed the intervention in each condition. There was evidence for reduced self-perceived stress in children and reduced negative affect in children by parental reports using the mindfulness app, but no significant reduction for anxiety or depression symptoms. In general, between-group effect sizes were small (ds < 0.45). Regular use, defined as at least 30 days of mindfulness practice within the study period, was associated with reduced child negative affect by parental reports, as well as reduced parental stress and child self-perceived stress.

Conclusions

These findings suggest that home use of a mindfulness app in young children can have a positive impact on children's emotional well-being if the app is used regularly, specifically for at least 30 days in the 8-week study period. Strategies aimed at promoting regular use of the mindfulness app at home could lead to even better outcomes for children.

Preregistration

Preregistered on OSF at https://osf.io/23vax.

A survey on the challenges, limitations, and opportunities of online testing of infants and young children during the COVID-19 pandemic: using our experiences to improve future practices

In developmental psychology, the widespread adoption of new methods for testing children does not typically occur over a matter of months. Yet, the COVID-19 pandemic and its associated social distancing requirements created a sudden need among many research groups to use a new method with which they had little or no experience: online testing. Here, we report results from a survey of 159 researchers detailing their early experiences with online testing. The survey approach allowed us to create a general picture of the challenges, limitations, and opportunities of online research, and it identified aspects of the methods that have the potential to impact interpretations of findings. We use the survey results to present considerations to improve online research practices.

Mixed methods evaluation of vaping and tobacco product use prevention interventions among youth in the Florida 4-H program

INTRODUCTION

Novel prevention programs are developed to address the increase in e-cigarette use (vaping) among children. However, it remains paramount to test their feasibility in rural settings. This pilot study implemented and evaluated the feasibility and outcomes of two innovative programs, CATCH My Breath and smokeSCREEN, among youth in rural settings in Florida.

METHODS

We conducted four focus groups with youth aged 11-17 recruited from 4-H rural clubs in Florida. In a subsequent randomized trial, we recruited 82 youth participants and assigned them to one of three arms: CATCH My Breath, smokeSCREEN, or control. CATCH My Breath and smokeSCREEN participants attended online group intervention sessions while the control group received educational material. Pre- and post-surveys were administered to all participants to assess knowledge, susceptibility, perceived positive outcomes and risk perceptions related to tobacco and e-cigarette use. Other feasibility parameters were also assessed.

RESULTS

Focus group discussions provided insights about feasibility and informed the implementation of both interventions in terms of delivery format, scheduling of sessions and incentives. After the intervention, CATCH My Breath participants significantly improved their general tobacco-related knowledge (post-pre = 16.21-12.92 = 3.3, p <.01) and risk perceptions towards other flavored tobacco products (post-pre = 19.29-17.71 = 1.6, p <.05). smokeSCREEN participants significantly improved their general tobacco knowledge (post-pre = 18.77-13.77 = 5.0, p <.01), knowledge about e-cigarettes (post-pre = 9.08-6.31 = 2.8, p <.01) and risk perception towards e-cigarettes (post-pre = 24.69-21.92 = 2.8, p <.05).

CONCLUSIONS

This study demonstrated feasibility of delivering the interventions via participant engagement, participants' willingness to be randomized, assessment of outcome measures, and exploration of different recruitment methods. Despite the potential positive influence of CATCH My Breath and smokeSCREEN on youth participants, further evaluation with larger samples is needed.

The Feasibility and Data Quality for a Listening Comprehension Task in an Unmoderated Remote Study With Children

PURPOSE

The purpose of this research note was to examine the sample representation, feasibility and completion, and data quality when using an unmoderated remote study (i.e., conducted without direct contact with a researcher) for a listening comprehension task with 4- to 11-year-old children.

METHOD

Thirty-five participants met inclusionary criteria for this study. Sample representation was examined descriptively. Feasibility and completion (i.e., submission of parent questionnaires and more than 50% of task with no missing data) were examined descriptively and compared with differences of proportions tests. Data quality (i.e., missing data for items with interference or not codable) was examined descriptively with multilevel logistic regression models, as well as one-sample proportions tests by listening comprehension task and participant characteristics.

RESULTS

Our sample skewed toward predominantly White and toward families with highly educated parents. Overall, most participants completed the task and had quality data (i.e., audibly clear responses that could be coded, few missing responses, and task completion) in this unmoderated format. There were not any statistically significant effects across participant characteristics in terms of rates of completion. Data quality only significantly differed by response type with mouse selection having the least amount of missing data followed by prompted audio-recorded questions and then open-ended audio-recorded questions.

CONCLUSIONS

The unmoderated remote study approach seems feasible for a listening comprehension task for most children ages 4-11 years old. Future work is needed to determine if these results apply to samples with broader representation. Overall, we found good data quality despite the less controlled environment in remote studies.

SUPPLEMENTAL MATERIAL

https://doi.org/10.23641/asha.23114924.

Mindfulness supports emotional resilience in children during the COVID-19 Pandemic

An important aspect of mental health in children is emotional resilience, the capacity to adapt to, and recover from, stressors and emotional challenges. Variation in trait mindfulness, one’s disposition to attend to experiences with an open and nonjudgmental attitude, may be an important individual difference in children that supports emotional resilience. In this study, we investigated whether trait mindfulness was related to emotional resilience in response to stressful changes in education and home-life during the COVID-19 pandemic in the United States. We conducted a correlational study examining self-report data from July 2020 to February 2021, from 163 eight-to-ten-year-old children living in the US. Higher trait mindfulness scores correlated with less stress, anxiety, depression, and negative affect in children, and lower ratings of COVID-19 impact on their lives. Mindfulness moderated the relationship between COVID-19 child impact and negative affect. Children scoring high on mindfulness showed no correlation between rated COVID-19 impact and negative affect, whereas those who scored low on mindfulness showed a positive correlation between child COVID-19 impact and negative affect. Higher levels of trait mindfulness may have helped children to better cope with a wide range of COVID-19 stressors. Future studies should investigate the mechanisms by which trait mindfulness supports emotional resilience in children.

Can an Online Reading Camp Teach 5-Year-Old Children to Read?

Literacy is an essential skill. Learning to read is a requirement for becoming a self-providing human being. However, while spoken language is acquired naturally with exposure to language without explicit instruction, reading and writing need to be taught explicitly. Decades of research have shown that well-structured teaching of phonological awareness, letter knowledge, and letter-to-sound mapping is crucial in building solid foundations for the acquisition of reading. During the COVID-19 pandemic, children worldwide did not have access to consistent and structured teaching and are, as a consequence, predicted to be behind in the development of their reading skills. Subsequent evidence confirms this prediction. With the best evidence-based practice in mind, we developed an online version of a well-structured early literacy training program (Reading Camp) for 5-year-old children. This 2-week online Reading Camp program is designed for pre-K children. It incorporates critical components of the fundamental skills essential to learning to read and is taught online in an interactive, multi-sensory, and peer-learning environment. We measure the participants' literacy skills and other related skills before and after participating in the online Reading Camp and compare the results to no-treatment controls. Results show that children who participated in the online Reading Camp improved significantly on all parameters in relation to controls. Our results demonstrate that a well-structured evidence-based reading instruction program, even if online and short-term, benefits 5-year-old children in learning to read. With the potential to scale up this online program, the evidence presented here, alongside previous evidence for the efficacy of the in-person program, indicates that the online Reading Camp program is effective and can be used to tackle a variety of questions regarding structural and functional plasticity in the early stages of reading acquisition.

Online testing in developmental science: A guide to design and implementation

At present, most developmental psychology experiments use participants from a mere subsection of the world's population. Moreover, like other fields of psychology, many studies in developmental psychology suffer from low statistical power due to small samples and limited observations. Online testing holds promise as a way to achieve more representative and robust, better powered experiments. As participants do not have to visit in person, it is easier to access populations living further away from a developmental lab, enabling testing of more diverse populations (e.g., urban vs rural areas, various different nationalities or geographies), both within and beyond the researcher's home country. Furthermore, due to the codified nature of browser-based online testing, it is possible for multiple labs to carry out the exact same study, allowing for better replications. Because of these advantages, developmental researchers have started to move experiments online so that caregivers and their children can participate from their home environments. However, the transition from traditional lab testing to remote online testing brings many challenges. Laboratory studies of infant and child development are typically conducted under highly standardized conditions to control factors, such as distractors, distance to the screen, movement, and lighting, and often rely on specialized equipment for measuring behavior. In this chapter, we provide a guide for researchers considering online testing of a developmental population. The different sections comprise an overview of the decision-making processes and the state-of-the-art advances associated with, as well as tangible recommendations for, online data collection.