Talk Around Town: A Mobile Phone Application to Support Parent–Child Talk in the Community

Abstract

Supports are largely absent and tools are scarce to assist parents receiving home-based early intervention services (e.g., Early Head Start) with enriching the language learning environments of young children beyond home to the community. Talk Around Town is a wayfinding mobile application designed to provide real-time, location-specific, evidence-based communication strategies to parents in community settings (e.g., park, community center, store, library). The application uses Global Positioning System (GPS) functionality within smartphones and Google Maps to support caregiver talk in community locations. The purpose of this pilot study is to examine early childhood service providers’ and parents’ perceptions of Talk Around Town. Overall, parents and early childhood service providers’ perspectives were largely positive. Implications for future research are discussed (e.g., tailoring the application for Department of Human Services caseworkers).