Sindrome de down

Mother-Child Interactions Involving Two-Year-Olds with Down Syndrome: A Look at Individual Differences
Susan B. Crawley University of Illinois at Chicago Donna Spiker University of Chicago
CRAWLEY, SUSAN B., and SPIKER, DONNA. Mother-Child Interactions Involving Two-Year-Olds

with Down Syndrome: A Look at Individual Differences. CHILD DEVELOPMENT, 1983, 5 4 , 1312-1323. Individualdifferences in mother-child interaction pattems involving 18 2-year-olds with Down syndrome were examined. Ratings of matemal, child, and dyadic qualities ohserved in semistnictured free play interactions were intercorrelated, and also correlated with Bayley MDI scores. Results indicated that social initiative, social responsivity, and play maturity ofthe children were positively intercorrelated andsignificantly correlated with MDI. Matemal sensitivity, elahorativeness, stimulation value, and mood were positively intercorrelated, with stimulation value heing the major matemal quality found to he positively correlated with child MDI. A dyadic rating of mutuality was also positively correlated with child MDI. Of special interest was the finding that matemal directiveness and sensitivity wereseparahle dimensions of matemal style, with directiveness as an isolated dimension found to he unrelated to MDI or to other matemal qualities. Exploratory analyses of suhgroups of mothers, however, suggested that directiveness and sensitivity interrelated in a numher of different pattems.

Most research on the interaction of mothers and their handicapped children has focused on handicapped-normal groupcomparisons. That is, mothers of handicapped children have been contrasted with mothers of nonnally developing children on one or more aspects of matemal style (Kogan, Wimberger, & Bobbitt, 1969; Rondal, 1978). As a preliminary research strategy, handicapped-normal comparison studies of mother-child interaction have been useful in that they allowed us to determine ways in which the socialexperiences of at least some handicapped children may differ from those of developmentally matched nonnal peers. They have been limited, however, in two ways,

First, handicapped-normal comparison research has tended to present modiers of disahled children as a homogeneous group reflecting a single "handicapped" interactional style, rather than as individuals who vary considerably in matemal behavior.By focusing on group differences, previous handicapped-normal comparison research has failed to examine the individual variation that may exist within a handicapped sample. Second, comparative studies have provided no empirical basis for interpreting the meaning or significance of group differences. Differences between groups may have represented parenting deficiencies on the part of mothers ofhandicapped children

This research was supported in part hy a research hoard grant awarded to the first author hy the University of Illinois at Chicago, and by grant no. 8214-02 from the Illinois Department of Mental Health and Developmental Disabilities awarded to the first author. The second author was a postdoctoral scholar at the Illinois Institute for Developmental Disabilities and at theUniversity of Illinois at Chicago at the time the research was conducted. The data for Sample 1 were collected by Jerry Mahoney while at the University of California, Los Angeles. Dr. Mahoney was supported by Project REACH contract no. 300-77-0306 from the U.S. Office of Special Education. We would like to thank Mara Wemer, Emy Lou Weller, Avraham Sehweiger, and Iris Finger for their contribution tothe collection ofthe videotaped observations. We would also like to thank Mara Wemer, Lilian Glikburg, Delores Wedgeworth, and Roseanne Clark for their assistance in developing the rating scales. Marco Martinez, James Kahn, and Victoria Hare provided helpful comments on earlier drafts ofthe manuscript, and Paula Sullivan typed the final copy. Special thanks goes to the personnel ofthe many...