Interaction between parents and young children with disabilities

Abstract

This article presents theory behind child–parent interaction, supporting it with empirical research aiming to examine the relationship between parental education approaches and skills developed at home by young children with Down syndrome. Special attention is paid to the idea of creating an optimal model for interaction between parents and a special child, which would contribute to his/her development and socialization during adulthood. The study involved 10 mother–child dyads, with the mothers aged from 36 to 45 and the children with Down syndrome aged from 2 to 3.5. We used the parental interaction methods of R.V. Ovcharova and J. Gottman, PARI questionnaire, which studies the variants of child–parent relations, and Bayley method, which is based on the known theories of child development starting from birth up to the age of three and assesses the psychomotor development of the child. In this study, statistical data analysis known as ‘Spearman’s rank correlation coefficient’ was used with the help of the computer program Jamovi. The analysis of the methods showed the prevalence of democratic communication style according to R.V. Ovcharova’s questionnaire and mothers’ high attachment to the child — the prevalence of emotional parenting style (J. Gottman method) and excessive concentration on the child (PARI method). No significant correlations were found when comparing the Gottman parental responsiveness scale with the scales assessing the neuropsychological development of young children with Down syndrome as part of the Bayley method. Comparison of the R.V. Ovcharova scale and Bayley questionnaire scales revealed a significant result only for one scale out of 8 — ‘Leisure’. The research findings and trends show the future potential of studying child–parent interaction in families with young children with Down syndrome by increasing the sample and conducting factor analysis, as well as by including fathers and significant adults in the sample for a deeper analysis of child–parent relations.