Oregon Research Institute

Utilizing Smart Speaker Technology to Deliver Parenting Education Support to Parents of Young Children

Investigators are developing a smart speaker-based program to help parents and children build healthy family routines.

Details

Behavioral sleep problems play an important role in children’s long-term adjustment. The presence of predictable, positive family routines improves children’s long-term trajectory for psychosocial and academic adjustment, especially in at-risk family environments. Evidence-based parenting programs have shown much value in addressing these problems, but the reach of parenting programs is limited by significant challenges in recruiting, engaging, and retaining
parents, such that most parents who could benefit from parenting assistance never receive it.

By overcoming logistical barriers to attending in-person parenting programs, technology-based parenting interventions offer significant potential for bringing evidence-based parenting supports to a broad range of parents experiencing
challenges in raising their children. However, technology-based approaches confront significant engagement
challenges as well.

Researchers are using smart speaker technology to create a tool for parents, called “Talk Parenting”, that will provide families with engaging, motivating support for use at home to build healthy family routines. Researchers are developing and evaluating feasibility of the first module, a guided Bedtime Routine to foster healthy sleep habits and provide experiential practice in self-regulation skills and a framework for positive parent-child interactions.

This is a subaward with Influents Innovations from the National Institute on Child Health and Human Development.