An examination of the effects of enhanced milieu teaching procedures applied by parents on the sociolinguistic skills of their mentally retarded children is proposed. The purpose of this study is to determine the extent to which parent application of milieu teaching procedures can enhance the immediate and longer term development of linguistic skills, social communicative behavior and active language analysis strategies by their mentally retarded children. Sixty parent-child dyads will serve as subjects. Mothers in 30 dyads will be trained to use language facilitation procedures that incorporate aspects of two models of language intervention, milieu teaching and responsive interaction. Measures of parent-child interaction, child acquisition of linguistic forms, child communication within and outside the parent-child dyad, and child strategies for learning new language are proposed in a combined single subject and group design. The results of this study will contribute to understanding how mentally retarded children learn all aspects of the language system, and the potential impact of parent input on child strategies for learning and language use.
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