PROJECT SUMMARY It takes an average of 17 years for best practices to be incorporated into everyday clinical practice. This research-to-practice gap is shocking and is a major barrier to improving the lives of individuals with communication disorders. One critical research-to-practice barrier is that most clinical research is done in academic settings, rather than in everyday settings. This has led to evidence-based procedures that are not feasible in the real word. The goal of this K18 award is to improve the candidate's skills in implementation science (the study of methods to promote the integration of evidence-based practices into everyday settings) and move her research into closing the research-to-practice gap. In terms of training objectives, the candidate will complete an online graduate certificate in implementation science and will work with mentors and colleagues at the Juniper Gardens Children's Project to gain skills in conducting high quality community- engaged implementation research. In terms of research, children with Developmental Language Disorder (DLD) are slower to learn new words than their peers, placing them at risk for school failure. Book reading is an effective way to teach new words to children with DLD and potentially can be scaled to meet the pressing need for continual word learning in this group. Specifically, a program that trains caregivers (e.g., parents) to teach new words through book reading and provides a monthly set of books and teaching materials has the potential to be cost effective and have far-reaching benefits: The caregiver can regularly teach their child new words. The proposed preliminary clinical trial takes a first step towards this long-term goal by developing a caregiver- administered book reading treatment aimed at pre-kindergarten children at-risk for DLD. Forty children with DLD and their caregivers will participate in a summer book reading program across three phases: (1) a 4-week period where they are provided with books with highlighted vocabulary words and a reading log (baseline phase to document typical reading and teaching behaviors); (2) a 4-week period where they receive training, support, books, and teaching materials (implementation phase); (3) a 4-week period where they receive books and teaching materials to examine their ability to continue the program (sustainability phase). Aims 1 and 2 determine whether caregivers increase the treatment dose (the number of times words are taught during book reading) and dose frequency (the number of times a book is read) in implementation and sustainment relative to baseline. Aim 3 will use surveys, interviews, and field notes to determine what caregivers find to be easy or difficulty about the treatment, especially in terms of dose and dose frequency. Aim 4 will determine whether child word learning varies by caregiver dose and/or dose frequency. This research advances our understanding of what aspects of treatment (dose or dose frequency) ...