App Profile: Change Talk: Childhood Obesity

How do you collaborate with patients and families to elicit and strengthen their motivation to change their health behaviors? How do you work with patients who are not sure they want to change?

Change Talk: Childhood Obesity™ is a role-play simulation where you take the role of a healthcare provider and engage in a series of practice conversations with virtual parents and their children. Through the conversations, you learn to apply Motivational Interviewing (MI) techniques such as reflective listening and rolling with resistance to help them identify motivation for change and make an action plan. Practice scenarios include the topics of sugary drinks, breastfeeding, and picky eating.

Motivational interviewing (MI) is an evidence-based and patient-centered method for enhancing intrinsic motivation to change health behaviors. Numerous studies show that health providers can use MI as a counseling technique to collaborate with patients to explore their feelings of ambivalence about change and then guide them in setting goals and developing a plan. Rather than just telling patients what’s wrong or what they should change; it’s instead about listening to what they feel is important and helping them find their own motivation for change.


* FEATURES
- Learn Motivational Interviewing (MI) techniques to better communicate with patients and motivate behavior change
- Learn by engaging in a series of simulated role-play conversations with fully animated parents and their children, while receiving personalized feedback from a virtual coach
- A pocket guide of MI techniques for quick reference whenever you want to refresh your skills

Change Talk: Childhood Obesity™ was developed by the American Academy of Pediatrics Institute for Healthy Childhood Weight™ (Institute) and Kognito™.
Development of this app was made possible by a grant from Danone Early Life Nutrition.
The Institute gratefully acknowledges the shared commitment and support of its Founding Sponsor, Nestlé.