Résumé
Early language skills play a major role in academic success and future social and professional integration. The interactions that children have with their environment during their first three years of life will influence their language development. Promoting quality interactions between children and their environment is therefore a public health issue. More specifically, childcare facilities can compensate for poor language stimulation within the family structure, provided that professional-child interactions are of sufficient quality. However, the lack of training in this field often does not allow the daycare center to play its role as a protective factor for language development. In our study, we asked ourselves what impact a targeted intervention on five behaviours promoting quality interactions could have on the practices of early childhood professionals. Méthode: we created an intervention targeting five behaviors that support preschoolers' communication and language and implemented it in a daycare center. To evaluate its effectiveness, we measured the occurrence of each targeted behavior by videotaping the interactions before and after the intervention. Subsequent analysis of the videos was conducted to provide quantitative and qualitative evidence of changes in their practices and the impact on the quality of interactions. Résultats: the results show a statistical trend for three of the five targeted behaviors: initiating interactions, responding to the child's attempts to communicate, and listening attentively to the child. Qualitatively, the professionals were more responsive, reactive and reciprocal following the intervention. The results of the satisfaction questionnaire show that the intervention overall met their needs. Conclusion et perspectives: the results obtained must be interpreted in light of a number of biases. Although this study demonstrates partial effectiveness of the intervention, it should be implemented in a larger number of nurseries to obtain more reliable results.