Sharing Tales That Teach: Shared Picturebook Reading for Early Childhood Emotional and Cognitive Development

NCT07666802 | Not Yet Recruiting

• 1 other identifier: STTT-UREB2026_42
• Study Type: interventional
• Target: 200
• Locations: 1 country
• Sites: 1

Brief Summary

Sharing Tales That Teach is a randomised study of a shared picturebook reading programme for 4- to 5-year-old children and their primary caregivers. The study will test whether a caregiver-delivered, emotion-focused shared reading programme leads to greater improvements in children's emotion regulation than a standard dialogic shared reading programme. Emotion regulation refers to children's developing ability to understand, express and manage emotions in ways that support learning, relationships and wellbeing. These skills are closely linked with executive function, including children's ability to remember instructions, control impulses and shift flexibly between activities. Shared picturebook reading may provide a natural, low-cost way for caregivers to support these skills through everyday interaction. Families in the randomised part of the study will be allocated to one of two 8-week shared reading programmes. In the emotion-focused group, caregivers will receive training in strategies such as naming emotions, discussing why characters feel as they do, talking about consequences of emotions and modelling ways to manage feelings. In the comparison group, caregivers will receive training in standard dialogic picturebook reading strategies, such as naming, describing, sequencing and asking open questions, without an explicit focus on emotions or emotion regulation. Both groups will use the same picturebooks and will be asked to complete three shared reading sessions per week at home. The main hypothesis is that children in the emotion-focused shared reading group will show greater improvement in emotion regulation from baseline to 12-month follow-up than children in the standard dialogic shared reading group. The study will also examine whether the programme affects children's executive function, caregiver wellbeing and caregiver emotion regulation. Additional exploratory analyses will examine caregiver-child interaction processes and whether caregiver or child characteristics are associated with different intervention effects. The study will recruit caregiver-child dyads through state primary schools in Greater London. Children will complete age-appropriate tasks and caregivers will complete questionnaires at baseline and follow-up. A laboratory subsample may also complete additional behavioural, observational and neurophysiological assessments. The study is low risk, non-invasive and does not involve medical treatment.

Conditions

Child Development; Executive Functions (EF); Emotion Regulation

Keywords

Emotion Regulation; Inhibitory Control; Cognitive Flexibility; Working Memory; Self-Control; Shared Reading; Dialogic Reading; Picturebooks; Early Childhood; Preschool Children; Caregiver-Child Dyads; Randomized Controlled Trial; Randomised Controlled Trial; Behavioural Intervention; Developmental Cognitive Neuroscience

Outcome Measures

Primary Outcomes (3)

• Change in Child Emotion Regulation

  Caregiver report using the Emotion Regulation Checklist (ERC) The ERC Adaptive Emotion Regulation total scores range from 23 to 92, higher scores indicating better emotion regulation.

  Baseline and 12-month follow-up

• Change in Child Emotion Regulation

  Self-Assessment of Young children's FEELings and emotion regulation - SAY-FEEL Adaptive Emotion Regulation scores range from 11 to 33, higher scores indicating stronger self-reported emotion regulation.

  Baseline and 12-month follow-up

• Neural Correlates of Emotion Regulation electroencephalography (EEG) recordings

  Resting-state frontal alpha asymmetry. Resting-state electroencephalography (EEG) recordings will be collected during eyes-open, eyes-closed, and passive video-viewing conditions. Frontal alpha asymmetry, calculated from alpha-band power at homologous frontal electrode sites, will serve as the primary EEG-derived outcome measure. Frontal alpha asymmetry has been associated with emotion regulation, affective control, and emotional reactivity in early childhood.

  Baseline and 12-month follow-up

Secondary Outcomes (14)

• Child Inhibitory Control Accuracy: Flanker Visual Filtering Task

  Baseline and 12- month follow-up

• Change in Child Cognitive Flexibility Accuracy Assessed by the Dimensional Change Card Sort Task

  Baseline and 12-month follow-up

• Change in Child Working Memory Accuracy Assessed by the Working Memory Span Task

  Baseline and 12-month follow-up

• Change in Caregiver-Reported Child Executive Function Assessed by the Childhood Executive Functioning Inventory

  Baseline and 12-month follow-up

• Change in Caregiver Self-Efficacy

  Baseline and 12-month follow-up

Other Outcomes (12)

• Mean Weekly Number of Shared Reading Sessions Paused or Stopped Due to Child Unwillingness as Assessed by Weekly Caregiver Feedback Form

  Weekly during the 8-week intervention period

• Intervention Fidelity and Engagement

  Weekly during the 8-week intervention period, with audio recordings from the first and final home shared-reading sessions

• Rate of Caregiver Emotion Talk During Caregiver-Child Shared Reading

  Baseline and 12-month follow-up laboratory shared-reading interaction tasks, with additional process data from the first and final home shared-reading sessions during the 8-week intervention period

Study Arms (2)

Emotion-Focused Shared Picturebook Reading

EXPERIMENTAL

Arm Description: Caregiver-child dyads allocated to this arm will receive an 8-week caregiver-delivered shared picturebook reading programme designed to support children's emotion regulation within everyday reading interactions. Caregivers will receive standardised training materials introducing emotion-focused scaffolding strategies, including emotion labelling, discussion of emotional causes and consequences, modelling of regulatory strategies and reflective questioning. Families will be asked to complete three shared reading sessions per week at home using age-appropriate picturebooks.

Behavioral: Emotion-Focused Shared Picturebook Reading

Standard Dialogic Picturebook Reading

ACTIVE COMPARATOR

Caregiver-child dyads allocated to this arm will receive an 8-week shared picturebook reading programme matched in duration, materials and caregiver involvement, but without explicit emotion-focused content. Caregivers will receive standardised training in standard dialogic and narrative reading strategies, including naming, describing, sequencing and encouraging child participation through open-ended questions. Families will use the same picturebooks as the intervention group and will be asked to complete three shared reading sessions per week at home.

Behavioral: Standard Dialogic Picturebook Reading

Interventions

Emotion-Focused Shared Picturebook Reading BEHAVIORAL

An 8-week caregiver-delivered shared picturebook reading programme designed to support emotion regulation in 4- to 5-year-old children. Caregivers receive standardised training materials, delivered through short instructional videos, introducing emotion-focused scaffolding strategies during shared reading. Strategies include emotion labelling, discussion of emotional causes and consequences, modelling of regulatory strategies and reflective questioning. Families are provided with age-appropriate picturebooks and asked to complete three shared reading sessions per week at home. Weekly feedback forms and audio recordings of the first and final sessions are used to support monitoring of engagement and fidelity.

Emotion-Focused Shared Picturebook Reading

Standard Dialogic Picturebook Reading BEHAVIORAL

An 8-week caregiver-delivered shared picturebook reading programme used as an active comparator. Caregivers receive standardised training materials introducing dialogic and narrative reading strategies, including naming, describing, sequencing and encouraging child participation through open-ended questions. The comparator is matched to the emotion-focused intervention for duration, materials and caregiver involvement, but does not include explicit training in emotion recognition, emotional states or regulation strategies. Families use the same picturebooks as the experimental arm and are asked to complete three shared reading sessions per week at home.

Standard Dialogic Picturebook Reading

Eligibility Criteria

• Age: 48 Months - 59 Months
• Sex: all
• Healthy Volunteers: Yes
• Age Groups: Child (0-17)

You may qualify if:

• Child aged 4 to 5 years at baseline assessment
• Child enrolled in a participating state primary school
• At least one primary caregiver willing to participate in shared reading activities and study assessments
• Caregiver has sufficient proficiency in English to engage with intervention materials and questionnaires

You may not qualify if:

• Child has an identified sensory impairment, such as uncorrected hearing or vision difficulties, that would impede engagement with study tasks
• Family is unable to commit to baseline and follow-up assessments

Sponsors & Collaborators

• University of Greenwich: lead

Study Sites (1)

University of Greenwich

London, SE10 9LS, United Kingdom

Location

MeSH Terms

Conditions

Emotional Regulation; Self-Control

Condition Hierarchy (Ancestors)

Social Behavior; Behavior

Study Officials

• Benjamin RG Sigsworth, MSc

  University of Greenwich

  PRINCIPAL INVESTIGATOR

• Laura Katus, PhD

  University of Greenwich

  STUDY DIRECTOR

Central Study Contacts

Benjamin RG Sigsworth, MSc

CONTACT

0044-20-8331-8000; benjamin.sigsworth@greenwich.ac.uk

Laura Katus, PhD

CONTACT

0044-20-8331-8000; l.Katus@greenwich.ac.uk

Study Design

• Study Type: interventional
• Phase: not applicable
• Allocation: RANDOMIZED
• Masking: SINGLE
• Who Masked: OUTCOMES ASSESSOR
• Masking Details: Caregivers and children will not be masked to allocation because the intervention is behavioural and the instructional content differs between conditions. Both study conditions will be presented neutrally as shared-reading programmes and delivered through standardised video materials to minimise expectancy effects. Outcome assessors responsible for scoring behavioural tasks, EEG/ERP data and observational measures will be blinded to group allocation. Data analysts will use anonymised group codes during the primary analyses, with allocation revealed only after the primary analysis code has been finalised.
• Purpose: OTHER
• Intervention Model: PARALLEL
• Sponsor Type: OTHER
• Responsible Party: PRINCIPAL INVESTIGATOR
• PI Title: Principal Investigator

Model Details: This is a randomised, two-arm, parallel-group superiority trial embedded within a broader longitudinal cohort study. Caregiver-child dyads in the embedded trial subsample will be individually randomised in a 1:1 allocation ratio to either an emotion-focused shared picturebook reading intervention or a standard dialogic picturebook reading active control condition. Allocation will be maintained throughout the intervention period, with outcome assessments conducted at baseline and approximately 12 months later.

Study Record Dates

• First Submitted: June 4, 2026
• First Posted: June 24, 2026
• Study Start (Estimated): September 1, 2026
• Primary Completion (Estimated): August 1, 2028
• Study Completion (Estimated): August 1, 2028
• Last Updated: June 24, 2026

Record last verified: 2026-06

Data Sharing

• IPD Sharing: Will share
• Shared Documents: STUDY PROTOCOL, SAP, ICF, ANALYTIC CODE
• Time Frame: Data and supporting information will become available following completion of the primary analyses and dissemination of the main study findings. Availability will be subject to ethical approval, participant consent, data protection requirements and repository arrangements.
• Access Criteria: Access to de-identified clean datasets will be provided upon reasonable request for purposes of research transparency and reproducibility. Requests will be reviewed by the principal investigator, in consultation with the supervisory team, to ensure consistency with the approved ethics protocol, participant consent and data protection requirements.

Locations

GB (1)