MATERNAL RESPONSIVITY PREDICTS THE PRELINGUISTIC COMMUNICATION INTERVENTION THAT FACILITATES GENERALIZED INTENTIONAL COMMUNICATION

Family systems theory posits that the relative effectiveness of early interventions will vary depending on various aspects of the Family. Th is study tested whether maternal responsivity would predict the extent to which Prelinguistic Milieu Teaching (PMT) facilitated generalized intentional communication better than a contrast treatment that was co nducted in a small group by a responsive adult (i.e., Responsive Small Group, RSG). Fifty-eight children with developmental disabilities in the prelinguistic communication period of development were randomly as signed to one of:he two staff implemented treatment groups. Thirty wer e assigned to RSG; 28 were assigned to PMT. Mothers were kept naive to the intervention methods, hypotheses, and measures. In families with mothers who responded to a high percentage of the children's communica tion acts at the pretreatment period, the children in the PMT group us ed more frequent intentional communication in post-treatment generaliz ation sessions with a trainer and mothers than did children in the RSG group. In the families with mothers who responded to fewer than 39% o f their children's communication acts, children in the RSG interventio n used more frequent intentional communication in posttreatment genera lization sessions with the mothers than did children in the PMT interv ention. Other family variables and no child variables that we measured could account for these findings.