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Background: Approximately 1 in 6 children (age 3–17) in the U.S. has a developmental disability and 1 in 88 has an autism spectrum disorder. Early intervention for a developmental delay can have a significant impact on a child’s ability to learn new skills. However, many of these children are not identified before entering school and thus miss the opportunity for early intervention services that would help them reach their full potential.
Program background: CDC’s “Learn the Signs. Act Early.” program aims to improve early identification of children with autism and other developmental disabilities so children and families can get the services and support they need as early as possible. One aspect of this program, the “Learn the Signs. Act Early.” health communication campaign (LTSAE), targets parents of young children with the goal of improving awareness of early child development, the importance of tracking their child’s development and of acting early on concerns. LTSAE, like many health communication campaigns, must continuously seek innovative strategies for promoting their messages to rise above the clutter of information competing for the attention of their audience, while also increasing the value of their products. “Amazing Me!” is a good example of a highly-innovative strategy that does just that. While producing children’s books aiming to teach children health and life lessons is a common endeavor, it is quite rare for a public health program to develop a children’s book as a strategy for reaching parents with important health messages. “Amazing Me!” not only provides an opportunity for parents and children to read together—a critical developmental activity, but holds the child’s attention and inspires an interest in reading while also educating the parent-reader about development. “Amazing me!” encourages the parent-reader to look for developmental milestones in their own child, provides a tool to track their child’s development, and encourages the parent to talk with their child’s doctor about development. There is currently no other book like “Amazing Me!”.
Evaluation Methods and Results: The proposed presentation will describe the development of “Amazing Me!”, share the results of two rounds of audience testing, explain how those results shaped the development of the book, and discuss proposed methods for evaluating the book’s impact. Results to be shared will include findings from focus groups, reading observations, and post-tests. Preliminary post-test results indicate that parents, after reading the book, are more likely to look for developmental milestones in their own child (72%), are aware of the “Learn the Signs. Act Early.” campaign (83%) and its website (87%), and plan to visit the website or call the hotline for more information (57%).
Conclusions: The children’s book “Amazing Me!” is a highly innovative and promising strategy for delivering health information to parents of young children.
Implications for research and/or practice: Using children’s literature to deliver health messages to parents of young children could be a promising strategy that might benefit many programs across various health topics and, as such, is worthy of creative and logistical investment and continued research.