The Effects of Mothers’ Contingent Interactions on Speech Sounds of Infants with Down Syndrome

This is the authors' abstract. We don't add key points for this paper.

Infants with Down syndrome have a documented risk of language delays beginning in early infancy. In the present study, mothers of three six to eight-month-old infants with Down Syndrome were trained to provide contingent vocal responses to their infants’ vocalizations in an alternating treatment design. We examined whether mothers’ contingent vocal imitation and contingent parentese speech can increase infants’ vocalization rates, non echoics, and echoic (imitative) responses. A control non-contingent condition was used as well as a Behavior Skills Training. Overall, non echoics vocalizations’ rate increased in the contingent conditions compared to baseline and the NCR (control) conditions.