Collaborate Community Collaboration

Akron, OH

In partnership with Summit Education Initiative (SEI), the TMW Center is developing an innovative pediatric-sector based strategy to make the 3Ts interventions easily accessible to families of young children by integrating them into existing healthcare and community support systems, beginning with pediatric clinics and birthing hospitals.

The Center will work closely with SEI and its partners—beginning with pediatric clinics associated with Akron Children’s Hospital and the CenteringPregnancy® program at Cleveland Clinic Akron General—to implement a multi-layered intervention strategy that engages parents and healthcare providers in the important work of supporting healthy brain development. This collaboration will allow the TMW Center and its partners to design, test, and refine an approach to the pediatrics sector that truly promotes healthy brain development in the first year of life—an approach that can be replicated in other communities across the country and have a significant impact on children’s life trajectories.

A cornerstone of this approach will be the designation of “Ready to Learn” pediatric clinics. These clinics will provide parents with information and support during well-child visits by implementing the 3Ts-Well Baby intervention and/or the Any Time is 3Ts Time campaign.

Journal Article Using Formative Research to Develop a Hospital-Based Perinatal Public Health Intervention in the United States: The Thirty Million Words Initiative Newborn Parent Education Curriculum

In this study, we detail the use of formative testing to inform the development of a curriculum designed to support the Universal Newborn Hearing Screening (UNHS).

Journal Article Shifting parental beliefs about child development to foster parental investments and improve school readiness outcomes

Socioeconomic gaps in child development open up early, with associated disparities in parental investments in children. Understanding the drivers of these disparities is key to designing effective policies.

Journal Article What Parents Know Matters: Parental Knowledge at Birth Predicts Caregiving Behaviors at 9 Months

This study sheds light on the importance of promoting parental knowledge about cognitive and language development to foster parental cognitive stimulations and language inputs during the first year of life.