Parent education project. III: Increasing affection and responsivity in developmentally handicapped mothers: component analysis, generalization, and effects on child language.
Show-and-practice beats talk-only when teaching parents with intellectual disability, and kids talk more as a direct result.
01Research in Context
What this study did
Researchers tested a three-step parent training package on mothers with intellectual disability. The steps were: tell, show, and give feedback.
Each mom learned to give warm attention, wait for her child to talk, and answer with labels or expansions. Trainers coached in the family's home until skills looked like those of moms without disability.
What they found
All moms reached near-typical levels of affection and response. Skills spread to new toys and daily care jobs.
Their two language-delayed children started talking more and using longer sentences after mom changed her style.
How this fits with other research
Alaimo et al. (2018) later added 'general-case' drills to the same BST recipe and saw parents master a feeding protocol. The 1989 study is the simpler base; the 2018 paper shows you can bolt on extra tools for tougher tasks.
Strauss et al. (2012) moved parent training inside full early-intensive ABA. They also saw bigger language gains when parents stayed faithful. Their work widens the 1989 finding: BST still works when buried inside a larger program.
Shire et al. (2014) pooled twelve train-the-trainer studies and warned most were weak. Your 1989 paper is one of the few single-case gems they counted, so keep using it, but pair it with newer quality checks.
Why it matters
If you coach parents with ID, skip long lectures. Use brief demos, practice, and immediate feedback instead. Track each mom's fidelity weekly; when it hits 90% for two visits, fade yourself out. The payoff is two-for-one: better parenting and faster child language without extra clinic hours.
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02At a glance
03Original abstract
We evaluated the effects of a parent training program consisting of verbal instruction, modeling, and feedback on the affection and responsivity of 3 developmentally handicapped mothers towards their children. The results indicated the following: First, the training package increased maternal physical affection, praise, and imitation of child vocalizations. These parenting skills increased to levels found in comparison groups of nonhandicapped mothers. Second, the training package was more effective than verbal instruction alone, the latter being the predominant method presently used by social service workers. Third, most maternal gains were maintained over a 3- to 18-month follow-up period, although one mother required a reinforced maintenance procedure. Fourth, instructing mothers to generalize served to increase the generalization of newly acquired skills from play times (the training context) to child-care tasks (e.g., diapering, feeding). Fifth, teaching the parents to imitate child vocalizations was related to gains in both the frequency and quality of verbal behavior of the two language delayed children as measured by standardized developmental tests and in vivo comparisons with age-matched children (who had nonhandicapped parents). These results show that behavioral instruction can improve important child-rearing skills of developmentally handicapped mothers, with corresponding benefits to their children.
Journal of applied behavior analysis, 1989 · doi:10.1901/jaba.1989.22-211