Intentional Communication Elicits Language-Facilitating Maternal Responses in Dyads With Children Who Have Developmental Disabilities

An experimental test of whether intentional communication elicits maternal responses purported to facilitate language development is presented. Fifty-eight prelinguistic children with disabilities and their mothers participated. Children were randomly assigned to two staff-implemented treatments that were designed to experimentally increase intentional communication ability. We predicted that treatment effects on maternal responses would vary by maternal education level and maternal responsive interaction style at the pretreatment period. We predicted any treatment effect on maternal responses would be mediated by posttreatment intentional communication. Results indicated that treatment effects on maternal responses varied by pretreatment maternal education level. A pattern of results also supports the conclusion that posttreatment intentional communication to mother was, at least in part, responsible for the effect on posttreatment maternal responses.