IMPROVING JOINT ENGAGEMENT IN PARENT-CHILD INTERACTION - AN INTERVENTION STUDY

The current study tested the effects of parent training on children's joint engagement in play interactions with their mothers. Seven presch ool children with developmental delays and their mothers participated in a 12-week intervention program. They were matched for developmental and communication status to seven children in a delayed-treatment con trol group. Mothers were trained to encourage child participation in s ocial interaction by being highly responsive and child-centered. Follo wing intervention, mother-child dyads experienced significantly more e pisodes of joint engagement than control dyads. Moreover, the total du ration of joint engagement and the mean length of joint engagement epi sodes also increased significantly. No treatment-induced changes were detected on a series of semi-structured tasks designed to measure join t attention, suggesting that dyadic changes in joint engagement did no t generalize to unfamiliar contexts. The results of this pilot study i ndicate that joint engagement is amenable to change, and the results s upport the use of engagement states as an outcome measure.