Content area
Abstract
This study was designed to investigate the effectiveness of a home-based conversational intervention program implemented by four Korean mothers with their young children with developmental delays during free play activities. Simultaneously it examined if maternal use of the four communication facilitation strategies (descriptive talk and pause, imitation and pause, expansion and pause, and environmental arrangement) would effect changes in child communicative behaviors. A within subject multiple baseline design across behaviors was used. The results demonstrated that three out of the four mothers learned to use the strategies and that their respective children showed increased percentage of initiations, and two of the three children showed clear increased rates of verbalizations. Turn-taking behaviors between the mothers and their children improved as well, resulting in a more balanced exchange of turns within a conversation. Two out of the three dyads demonstrated increased rates of turn-takes following an initiation. In addition, observations during the maintenance condition showed that many positive changes were evident two months following completion of training, and mothers reported positive satisfaction with the intervention. The intervention was only partly successful with one mother who withdrew from the program during intervention. However, the findings of this study give credence to involving parents in interventions that promote child communication skills during naturally occurring routines, that facilitate positive parent-child interaction, and that assess the transferability of interventions from one culture to another.
