Maternal support for autonomy: relationships with persistence for children with Down syndrome and typically developing children.
Letting toddlers with Down syndrome try first boosts their persistence, while typical peers are unfazed.
01Research in Context
What this study did
Gilmore et al. (2009) watched moms and toddlers play with hard puzzles.
Some toddlers had Down syndrome. Some were typically developing.
The team scored how often moms let the child try first. They called this ‘autonomy support.’
What they found
Toddlers with Down syndrome kept working longer when moms waited before helping.
The same link did not show up for typically developing kids.
For them, mom’s wait-or-help style made no clear difference in persistence.
How this fits with other research
Phillips et al. (2017) asked moms to fill out parenting surveys. Moms of kids with Down syndrome rated themselves more permissive and less authoritative than moms of typical kids. The survey data extend the lab finding: the same mothers who let kids struggle in 2009 later call their own style more relaxed.
Boswell et al. (2023) surveyed parents of older children with mixed disabilities. They also found that autonomy-supportive parenting predicted higher self-determination. The 2023 study widens the 2009 result beyond toddlers and beyond Down syndrome.
Boonen et al. (2015) watched moms of school-age children with autism. After they counted parenting stress, the autism–typical difference in sensitivity vanished. Like Linda et al., they show child diagnosis alone does not decide maternal style; stress and child needs shape it.
Why it matters
When you coach families of young children with Down syndrome, praise the moments when parents pause and let the child attempt first.
That small wait links to longer persistence in the task, a core learning skill.
Typical peers may not need the same pause, so tailor your parent training: urge autonomy support mainly when developmental risk is present.
Want CEUs on This Topic?
The ABA Clubhouse has 60+ free CEUs — live every Wednesday. Ethics, supervision & clinical topics.
Join Free →During play sessions, prompt mom to count to three before helping her child with Down syndrome stack blocks or fit shapes.
02At a glance
03Original abstract
Maternal behaviors and child mastery behaviors were examined in 25 children with Down syndrome and 43 typically developing children matched for mental age (24-36 months). During a shared problem-solving task, there were no group differences in maternal directiveness or support for autonomy, and mothers in the two groups used similar verbal strategies when helping their child. There were also no group differences in child mastery behaviors, measured as persistence with two optimally challenging tasks. However, the two groups differed in the relationships of maternal style with child persistence. Children with Down syndrome whose mothers were more supportive of their autonomy in the shared task displayed greater persistence when working independently on a challenging puzzle, while children of highly directive mothers displayed lower levels of persistence. For typically developing children, persistence was unrelated to maternal style, suggesting that mother behaviors may have different causes or consequences in the two groups.
Research in developmental disabilities, 2009 · doi:10.1016/j.ridd.2009.02.005