CHILDREN AND FAMILIES

Faculty Publications

 

Professional Publications

 

Faculty Publications:

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, 23 (2), 77-89. (PDF)

     This study investigates the effectiveness of relationship-focused intervention on the social and emotional well being of children diagnosed with autism or Pervasive Developmental Disorders. Relationship Focused intervention (RF) is a general approach to developmental intervention that encourages and supports parents to enhance their use of responsive interactive strategies during routine interactions with their children. The sample for this study included 20 young children diagnosed with autism or PDD and their parents. Parents and children received weekly intervention sessions for periods of time ranging from 8 to 14 months. These sessions focused on encouraging parents to use Responsive Teaching strategies to promote children's acquisition and  use of pivotal intervention objectives. Comparisons of pre- and post- intervention assessments indicated that the intervention was successful at encouraging mothers to engage in more responsive interactions with their children. Increases in mothers' responsiveness were associated with significant improvements in children's social interaction as well as in standardized measures of their social emotional functioning. Results are discussed in terms of the mechanism by which relationship focused intervention is likely to promote children's social-emotional functioning.

Kim J.M.  &   Mahoney, G. (2004). The effects of mother's style of interaction on children's engagement: Implications for using responsive interventions with parents. Topics in Early Childhood Special Education, 24 (1), 31-38. (PDF)

      The purpose of this study is to examine the effects of mothers' style of interaction on children's interactive engagement.  The study included a sample of 30 children from Korea, including chronologically age matched groups of children with disabilities (N =13) and children without disabilities (N =17). Parents were videotape recorded while playing with their children with a standard set of developmentally appropriate toys.  These observations were coded with the Child Behavior Rating Scale to assess children's engagement and the Maternal Behavior Rating Scale to assess mother's style interaction.  Comparisons of these two groups of children and mothers indicated significant differences both in the level of children's engagement and mothers' style of interacting.  Children with disabilities were less actively engaged than children without disabilities.  Mothers were less responsive and more directive while interacting with children with disabilities. Regression analyses indicated that maternal responsiveness was a significant predictor of children's engagement.  These results are described in terms (a) factors that contribute to children's developmental growth and (b) the kinds of intervention objectives that should be targeted with responsive teaching strategies. 

Mahoney, G & Perales, F. (In Press, 2005). A comparison of the impact of relationship-focused intervention on young children with Pervasive Developmental Disorders and other disabilities. Journal of Developmental and Behavioral Pediatrics, 26 (2) , 77-85 . (PDF)

      This study compares the effects of Relationship Focused Early Intervention on toddlers and preschool aged children who were classified as having either Pervasive Developmental Disorders (PDD) (N= 20) or Developmental Disabilities (DD) (N=30). The intervention was conducted over a one year time period through weekly individual parent-child sessions. It focused on helping parents use Responsive Teaching strategies to encourage their children to acquire and use pivotal developmental behaviors that addressed their individualized developmental needs. Pre- post- comparisons indicated significant increases in parents' responsiveness and children's pivotal behavior. Both groups of children made significant improvements in their cognitive, communication and socio-emotional functioning. However, children with PDD made statistically greater improvements on the developmental measures than children with DD. On several developmental measures, children's improvements were related to increases in both their parents' responsiveness and their own pivotal behavior.

 

Professional Publications:

 

        The Responsive Teaching National Outreach Projects offers several materials and publications that are useful for professionals who are providing developmental or mental health interventions to young children and their parents. These materials can be ordered through the Responsive teaching Web site http://responsiveteaching.org/RTMaterials/RTMaterials.htm

Responsive Teaching Curriculum Guide. G. Mahoney & J. MacDonald (2004).  The Responsive Teaching curriculum guide, Responsive Teaching: Parent Mediated Developmental Intervention, will be published in 2005 by PRO-ED. The Responsive Teaching Curriculum Guide is a prepublication draft of this curriculum.  It includes 12 chapters that describe the rationale and foundations for the Responsive Teaching Intervention Model, Procedures for Planning and Implementing Responsive Teaching, as well as detailed descriptions of each of the Intervention Objectives, Responsive Teaching Strategies and Intervention Topics that comprise this program.  Professionals can use this guide to plan and carry out comprehensive Responsive Teaching Intervention programs that are tailored to the individualized Developmental or Social Emotional needs of young children.  In addition, the field guide contains assessment instruments that can be used for evaluating parents' progress in acquiring Responsive Teaching strategies as well as children's status regarding their Pivotal Developmental Behaviors.

        This field guide comes in two volumes and has approximately 500 pages. It has a vinyl plastic cover and spiral binding.

        Developmental Rainbow: Early Childhood Developmental Profile. G. Mahoney, & F.  Mahoney (1996). The Developmental Rainbow is a comprehensive, detailed list of developmental skills and behaviors that children manifest from birth through five years of age. Items included in this profile were compiled and adapted from several developmental assessment instruments and preschool curricula and are organized intoDevelopmental Age Ranges. They describe children's behavior across five domains including: cognition, language, social-emotional  functioning, motor development and self help skills. Each of the developmental domains are further subdivided into general categories of behavior that reflect the major developmental accomplishments emphasized during early childhood.

         This observation tool is designed to be used by early childhood professionals to:conduct play-based developmental observations and assessments; help parents understand the developmental significance of their children's behavior;identify reasonable developmental outcomes for young children; and monitor children's progress in developmental intervention programs. 

        The Developmental Rainbow has 80 pages, and is spiral bound. Each of the Developmental Domains is Tabbed and Color Coded so that they can be conveniently used in practice.

        Responsive Teaching Planning and Tracking Program: Field Version 3.1. G. Mahoney & F. Perales, Developed by H. Ocak (2002). The Responsive Teaching Planning and Tracking Program is a CD-ROM that can be used in Personal Computers that have Windows 98 or more recent versions of Windows. It was developed with Microsoft Access. This computerized program provides professionals with a highly time efficient means for planning and printing intervention session plans. It also has features that allow interventionists to record follow-up information regarding intervention sessions and children's progress with Pivotal Intervention Objectives. Information for each session regarding intervention objectives, strategies, topics and follow-up are automatically stored in a data file for each client. This information can be used to generate several reports including: a Child Development report; Intervention Service Logs that can be used to review objectives, strategies and topics that have been used with individual children; and Intervention Activity Reports that list all the intervention sessions conducted during a period of time by a professional. This program is designed to be used by one or multiple interventionists. It can be installed and operated on local computer networks.

        The program comes equipped with a detailed Help Program that provides all the documentation needed to operate this program. In addition, Responsive Teaching staff are available to provide telephone consultation for problems that may be encountered in installing and using this program. Individuals who are unable to use this program may return it for a full refund.