EVALUATION OF AN INTERVENTION PROGRAM - RELATION BETWEEN CHILDRENS PHONOLOGY AND PARENTS COMMUNICATIVE-BEHAVIOR

Parents of 9 preschoolers with Down syndrome participated in a trainin g program focusing on phonological skills. Three of the children were producing multiword utterances, but their speech was characterized by jargon and/or inconsistent errors. The remaining 6 children had very f ew spoken words or were mute; some relied on a Makaton sign vocabulary . Parents attended twelve 3-hour training sessions. Videotapes of pare nt-child interactions (made before, during, and after the program) wer e analyzed for number and type of children's phonological errors and r ating of parents therapeutic skills. Results showed that measures of t he children's phonological abilities were correlated with their parent s' interactional communication skills.