The Effectiveness of Responsive Teaching on Parents Engagement
with Children During Play
Introduction
The field of Early Intervention emphasizes the importance of
interactions between parents and children that promote learning when
they occur throughout daily activities.
Responsive Teaching (RT) is an intervention focusing on enhancing
relationships between caregivers and children by teaching parents
sequence of strategies to promote their interactions through daily
routine and activities.
The evidence-based RT strategies are, for example, take one turn and
wait, follow childs lead, or imitate childs actions and communications
(MacDonald & Stoika, 2007).
The uniqueness of the present study is that all interactions between the
professional and caregiver will occur through an online live format,
called tele-intervention, which provides potential benefits such as time-
effective. Also, the major strength of virtual intervention is the ability
to provide services to families in their natural environments (Cason,
2011).
This study will assess the effectiveness of using tele-intervention to
deliver evidence-based intervention strategies that can have a positive
effect on parent-child interactions and learning.
Research Questions
Does coaching through teleintervention caregiver on RT
strategies increases parents responsiveness with her child?
Would mothers use of responsive teaching result in
improvements in childs social interaction?
Methods
Participants:
Mother and 32 mos. old child with Autism
Procedures:
Ten week, 20 session program using two curricula:
1) Responsive Teaching (RT);
2) Positive Parenting Program (Triple P).
Each tele-intervention RT session focused on:
1) Helping mother learn new strategies for interactions with her child
Get into your childs world, take turn
Play face-to-face games without toys, play back and forth with
sounds
Imitate childs sounds and actions, follow childs lead
Follow childs focus of attention, and play with toys the way the
child does
2) Encouraging mother to continue using strategies and teach other
caregivers to use strategies in between session
Data collection:
The data were coded during sessions while mom and the child
were on the screen. The frequency of moms use of wait time and
turn taking and the childs frequency of joint attention and
responding to or initiating a request were measured.
Ke-Jui Yen
Kent State University, Early Intervention Certificate Program
Results
The effects of coaching on mothers use of responsive behaviors with the child:
Increasing trend of parents use of wait time and turn taking
The effects on mothers responsive behaviors on the childs communication:
Child increased use of responding to a request and initiate a request.
Child the joint attention is decreased on the graph trend level. The angle of the camera affected
on observations of the childs behaviors.
As mom implemented responsive strategies, the child gradually increased initiating and responding
to requests.
Discussion
The increasing trend in parents responsiveness and childs social
interaction behaviors was observed during RT sessions. In early
intervention field, this is important findings because of more effective
interactions between caregivers and children, more learning opportunities
for children to promote all areas of developments.
Using similar responsive teaching curriculum to promote more successful
responsive interaction between parents and children with autism
(Mahoney and Perales, 2003). Consistent with the study, when mom
increased her use of strategies through intervention sessions, the childs
social communication increased.
This study included virtual coaching sessions, which were provided to
support parents learning. During session 8 and 10, the early
interventionist coached mom and the child increased respond to requests
and initiate requests while mom increasingly waited for taking turns.
The strengths of teleintervention are saving transportation time, reducing
a cost of delivery of service, and keeping families in their natural
environment (Cason, 2011). However, technological challenges need to
be considered, for example, the view of the camera was limited to
observe interactions between mom and the child during sessions. It
caused the parents and childs behaviors were coded within different
length of times during sessions.
Mother completed mid-evaluation of the program indicated high level of
satisfaction and increase level of confidence. This finding aligns with the
2016 program report that families enjoyed the teleintervention program
and had seen significant changes in their children (Family Child Learning
Center/Akron Childrens Hospital, 2016).
Future Directions:
Consider parents videotape playtime with child outside the sessions
should help capture more successful interaction moments.
Observation of play time during sessions should give parents more
supports on weekly strategies that had been giving and help
interventionists coach on different activities for families.
References
Family Child Learning Center/ Akron Childrens Hospital, End-of-Year
Report of CONNECTIONS, 2016
Jana, C. (2011). Telerehabilitation: An Adjunct Service Delivery Model for
Early Intervention Services. International Journal Of Telerehabilitation, Vol
3, Issue 1 (2011), (1), doi:10.5195/ijt.2011.6071
MacDonald, J. D., & Stoika, P. (2007). Play to talk : a practical guide to
help your late-talking child join the conversation. Madison, WI : Kiddo
Publishing, c2007.
Mahoney, G., & Perales, F. (2003). Using relationship-focused intervention
to enhance the social--emotional functioning of young children with autism
spectrum disorders. Topics In Early Childhood Special Education, (2), 77.