The Early Care and Learning Professionals Adverse Childhood Experiences Project ended June 30, 2025.

Visit one of our partners for more information:

 Le Bonheur Nurse-Family Partnership
 Porter-Leath Early HeadStart 

The Le Bonheur Nurse Family Partnership' LENA Home program is ideal for coaching and home visitation programs that would like to supplement their curriculum with objective feedback from LENA technology.  Home visitors using LENA technology to measure language gain objective insights on home talk that can be used to inform and motivate parents and track progress toward increasing quality interactions. Productivity is increased through clear reports that provide insights on how much adults spoke to their child(ren), back-and-forth exchanges between parents and child, and TV and electronic sound throughout the day. The feedback is designed to show progress over time. You can also receive scheduling and text reminders that simplify logistics and ease the burden on home visitors, implementation support, one year of technical assistance, and two validated measures of the child(ren) language behavior. LENA Home is best suited for families with a young child who has an IFSP or suspected disability.  

At Porter Leath, the LENA Grow program not only enhances communication through the classroom teachers, but LENA Grow also makes a huge impact in our students’ communication as well. By utilizing the fourteen Talking Tips along with the Conversational Starters, teachers are able to set Early Head Start, Pre-K and Preschool classrooms on the right path for meaningful conversation throughout the day. LENA Grow allows educators to set and accomplish goals related to language and literacy. Students gain the opportunity to listen and practice oral language skills. The curriculum encourages students to form relationships with each other, strengthens classroom community, and encourages strong habits that lead to better quality language skills and more effective learning.

Language ENvironment Analysis

Through language-enhanced parent education, we hope to enhance the knowledge you already have of child development, particularly in language and social-emotional development through LENA Research coupled with Nurturing Parenting and Adverse Childhood Experiences Awareness group sessions.  Parent/caregiver groups are conducted once per week at a community location near you. This is a program that helps parents/caregivers understand the importance of talking with their children, early brain development, and literacy for early care through back-and-forth conversational turns.  Participants are provided childcare, refreshments, 10 books for the child, and a weekly gift card for participating. 

 

Why is talking with children so important?

More than 20 years of research show a relationship between the amount of language children experience and their brain development. Recent brain imaging studies indicate that conversational turns in particular — back-and-forth alternations between a child and an adult — have unique brain-building power. During the first three years of a child's life, these back-and-forth conversations are a significant factor driving brain growth and school readiness.

Why does LENA focus specifically on early talk, rather than other factors that may affect children's development?

When adults engage in high-quality "serve and return" interactions with children, they build a healthy foundation of brain architecture and neural connections that will last a lifetime. LENA Start is designed to help caregivers boost interactive talk with children in anticipation of many cascading benefits for the childlike better social-emotional health and school readiness — that will lay the groundwork for future success.

Is there variability in how much different families talk with children?

Yes. Studies that used LENA technology to understand the home language environment found
significant differences in how much families talk with their children. Even in the same household,
talk levels vary significantly during the course of the day and from week to week. That's where LENA
comes in — our language-measurement technology is an objective tool to help parents understand,
measure, and increase conversations with children.

The Early Care and Learning Professionals Adverse Childhood Experiences Project ended June 30, 2025