Dipesh Navsaria contributes to updated AAP Literacy Promotion policy statement

The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) encourages parents and caregivers to read aloud with their newborns and young children as an opportunity to foster loving, nurturing relationships during a critical time of brain development, and recommends that pediatricians support families with guidance and books at well-child visits, according to an updated policy statement.

The policy statement, “Literacy Promotion: An Essential Component of Primary Care Pediatric Practice,” marks the first update in AAP recommendations since 2014. Given the extraordinary amount of research in this area, an accompanying new technical report reviews the evidence for shared reading as a way to strengthen and nurture relationships, stimulate brain circuitry, and create early attachments.

The policy statement, written under the auspices of the AAP Council on Early Childhood, was published on September 29 in Pediatrics online during the AAP 2024 National Conference & Exhibition in Orlando, Florida. Both the policy statement and technical report will be published in the December 2024 issue of Pediatrics.

Dipesh Navsaria, MPH, MSLIS, MD, professor, Division of General Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine, is chair of the AAP’s Council on Early Childhood and helped oversee the policy update process. He is also a co-author of the accompanying technical report.

“Turning the pages of a high-quality, print book filled with colorful pictures and rich, expressive language are best,” Navsaria said. “While touchscreens and other electronic devices may be popular, they are typically passive or solitary experiences for children and do not offer the same benefits of interactivity and relationship-building.”

Recommendations

The AAP recommends that pediatricians:

  • Encourage shared reading beginning at birth and continuing at least through kindergarten, including, when possible, in the NICU.
  • Develop skills to discuss with parents strategies for mutually joyful and developmentally appropriate reading activities. Encourage meaningful, language-rich engagement with books, pictures, and the written word, and model techniques to prompt reciprocal, responsive, positive experiences.
  • Provide high-quality, developmentally and linguistically appropriate, and culturally diverse books at health supervision visits for all young children.
  • Place the highest priority on offering books for children from low-income families who may lack access to them.
  • Support the AAP recommendation of limited screen use in early childhood with an emphasis on print books for young children. Digital books do not foster equivalent parent-child interactions. If screen-based reading or audiobooks are used, recommend parents include reciprocal interactions with their children around these digital activities to promote relational connection and enhance child learning.
  • Emphasize the value of books representing diverse cultures, characters, and themes for all children, and supporting the use of these books to generate conversations about cultural pride, inclusion, belonging, and equity.
  • Incorporate guidance and encouragement about reading aloud even in child well visits when books may not be readily available, including when primary care is provided virtually.
  • Advocate toward establishing public and private funding for diverse high-quality, developmentally appropriate children’s books to be provided at pediatric health supervision (wellness) visits to all children.

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