Parents’ brainwaves track and respond to changes in their infant’s brain activity when they play together.
LENA - Building brains through early talk
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Every interaction counts.
Let’s NOT stop talking about talk.
At LENA, we believe that adult caregivers have the power to make a difference in a child’s life. Helping parents – and early childhood teachers – use that power to boost vocabulary and literacy is a good thing.
New research strengthens link between adult-child conversation and brain structure, reading skills
A new study exploring associations between family socioeconomic background, children’s brain structure, and children’s reading skills indicates that children who experience more conversational turns may have increased brain growth, and in turn, better reading skills.
Initial longitudinal evaluation results: Huntsville children whose parents participated in LENA Start have stronger literacy skills two years later
Promising new data show that children whose families participated in LENA Start, a parent-group program focused on increasing early talk, demonstrated considerably higher early literacy scores and were far more likely to be at an advanced literacy level entering pre-K.
Sequatchie Valley Head Start uses LENA Grow to meet performance standards for professional development
Sequatchie Valley Head Start uses LENA Grow to meet federal coaching requirements and work with teachers geographically separated over five counties.
Georgia Department of Public Health uses community partnerships and Project LAUNCH funding to scale parent programming county-wide
The team at the West Central Health District drew on a range of existing community partners to find space to run classes, recruit parents, and scale impact.
Infant and toddler CLASS assessment: Your questions answered!
Teachstone’s senior research advisor discusses the state of early childhood classrooms, challenges and opportunities for growth, and answers common questions about CLASS.
Early learning classrooms in Fort Worth ISD using LENA Grow increase CLASS® scores
Classrooms that used LENA Grow, an experiential professional development program for early childhood teachers, increased scores in key CLASS domains compared to classrooms that did not use the program, a pre-post evaluation shows.
Research Roundup: How researchers are using LENA technology to understand child development
Learn how different scientists are using LENA technology to better understand how children learn and develop and in what type of environment they thrive.
Q&A with Dr. Fred Zimmerman
Dr. Zimmerman explains his latest research into how environments and external factors affect population health and child development.
From the archives: Conversations with adults boost child language development, study finds
UCLA professor Dr. Frederick Zimmerman explains his 2009 research which indicates conversational turns have unique power to boost child language development.
Four strategies one nonprofit uses to boost literacy citywide
Calgary Reads, a nonprofit in Alberta, Canada, uses LENA Start as a core component of their citywide strategy to boost early literacy in Calgary.
Thoughts on 15 years and the staying power of LENA
Reflecting on the past 15 years, Judi and I are struck once again by how much the team at LENA has achieved drawing from Terry’s first insights and ideas.
How coaches can help teachers take a deep dive into LENA data
Explore ideas and strategies to support teachers get the most out of their LENA reports and drive changes in interactive talk in the classroom.
A Message to Early Childhood Educators — We see you!
We see you washing paint off little fingers for the tenth time today. We see you using silly voices to make shared reading fun. And we see you putting your heart into your work.
Research Roundup: New information on infant language acquisition
Read summaries of three newly-published studies exploring how young children develop and acquire language.
School readiness team at Huntsville City Schools uses LENA Start to increase children’s kindergarten readiness
To help prepare children to succeed in kindergarten, one school district in northern Alabama launched an early language intervention to boost cognitive development in children ages 0-3.
Mom uses LENA technology to advocate for more robust school support for daughter who is hard of hearing
Lisa Eberlein used LENA technology to investigate the language environment her daughter experienced at school. She used the data to demonstrate the need for her daughter to have an FM system in the classroom.
Research Roundup: How adult friendship, socioeconomic status, and screen time may affect developing brains
Read the latest studies exploring how everything from a child’s socioeconomic status to the hours they spend looking at a screen are related to their brain development.
Five things to know about LENA and privacy
At LENA, we take data security and privacy seriously. We meet the highest industry standards for data protection.
5 ways to make data a part of your program success story (or, how I learned to stop worrying and love the data)
We’ve all heard the saying, “No data, no dollars,” but in the field of early childhood services, collecting objective and reliable data can be uniquely challenging. Learn about how to use your data to share the real story of the great work your program is doing.
It’s Time to Shine a Light on Language Isolation in Infant and Toddler Classrooms
New grant opportunities are making it possible to adopt data-informed strategies for ensuring that we can look forward to a time when every child’s day is filled with wonderful, nourishing conversation.
Case Study: Teen parent program adopts LENA Start to grow connections between clients, children
A home-visiting program for teen parents in Boulder County expanded their services to include parent-group classes, to the benefit of clients and their children.
Putting a bow on 2018 and looking forward to 2019
2018 has been an incredible year for LENA with new research, strong partnerships, and 10 million conversational turns! We’re thoroughly excited about the road ahead and all that 2019 will bring as we work toward our vision of all children entering school prepared for success.