Participants

Setting

Responsive
Teaching

Responsive
Teaching

Responsive
Teaching

Responsive
Teaching

Responsive
Teaching

50 children (ages 1254 months) with

developmental delays
and their mothers

15 children with
Down syndrome
who were
between 2 and 6
years of age, and
their mothers

1 five-yearold boy with

autism and his
mother

50 children (1254 months) with

pervasive
developmental
disorders
(PDDs) or other
developmental
disabilities
(DDs), and their
mothers

Center-based
facility

A centrebased facility
during biweekly
sessions over a
four-month
period
of time
The authors,
Mahoney and
Perales

Center-based
facility

20 children who
had been
diagnosed
by their
physicians as
having autism
or pervasive
developmental
disorder (PDD)
and their
mothers
Center-based
setting

Parents
homes

Parents
homes

Six early
intervention
specialists

Four early
intervention
specialists (2
speech
pathologists, 1
school
psychologist,
and 1 educator)

Responsive
Teaching A
manual-based
curriculum that
asserts
that the effects
of responsive
interaction
strategies on
childrens
development
are mediated by
the impact that
they
have on
childrens
pivotal
developmental
behaviors

Responsive
Teaching
Intervention
that focuses on
enhancing
childrens
cognition,
communication,
socioemotional,
motivation and
motor skills

The mother and

childs home

The familys
home

Implementers

Independent
Variables and
operational
definitions

Early Intervention
team using
Responsive Teaching
to train the mothers

Responsive Teaching
A method of early
intervention that
focuses on the
cognitive,
language, and social
emotional needs of
young children with
developmental
problems. Designed
to be implemented
by parents/caregivers
during daily routines
and activities in the
childs natural
environment.
The Responsive
Teaching curriculum:
66 Responsive
Teaching strategies
broken into 5
different interactive
dimensions:
Reciprocity

One professional
interventionist
who had 5
months of RT
training, for each
mother-child dyad

Responsive
Teaching A
manualized
developmental
intervention that
is designed to
promote
childrens
cognitive,
communicative,
and social
emotional
functioning. It
encourages
parents to use the
Responsive
Interaction (RI)
strategies as a
means for
increasing their
level of
responsiveness
with their
children.
RT strategies
from the RT

1 five-yearold girl with

Down
syndrome and
her mother

Group of
professional
speech and
language
therapists, and
special
educators
Responsive
Teaching A
manualized
Relationshipfocused
intervention
(RFI)
curriculum that
is specifically
designed to
enhance the
development
and social
emotional
functioning of
children with
disabilities who
are younger
than six years
old. The
curriculum
includes
65 responsive
interaction
strategies that
were derived
from previously

RT
intervention
that was
organized
around 19
pivotal
intervention

Intervention
that focused on
helping parents
learn RT
strategies that
they could
incorporate into
their
interactions with
their children
during daily
routines
RT strategies
that were

frequent episodes of
interaction that
are characterised by
a balanced, give and
take relationship;
Contingency
interactions that have
an immediate
and direct
relationship to a
childs previous
behaviours
that support and
encourage the childs
actions,
intentions, and
communications;
Shared Control
guidance and
direction that
facilitates
and expands the
actions and
communications
which the child
initiates or leads;
Affect expressive,
animated and warm
interactions
that are
characterised by
enjoyment or delight
in
interacting with the
child;
Match interactions
and requests that are
adjusted to
the childs
developmental level,
current interests, and
behavioural style or
temperament.

Curriculum used
to enhance
childrens use of
their
individualized
pivotal
intervention
objectives
RT intervention
that focused on
the childs
developmental
concerns;
described and
demonstrated 1
to 2 RT strategies
to promote a
pivotal behavior;
coached mothers
while they
attempted to
implement the
strategies with
their child; and
helped mothers
develop a plan to
integrate
these strategies
into their routine
activities and
interactions with
their child

published RFI
Curricula.

Two
responsive
interaction
strategies to
promote
pivotal
developmental
intervention
objectives
related to their
childrens
needs

objectives,
which are
behaviors that
(a) have been
described as
core
processes for
cognitive,
communication,
and
socioemotional
development
and (b) have
been reported
to be
influenced by
maternal
responsiveness.

designed to help
parents
accentuate
reciprocity,
contingency,
shared control,
affect, and
match
Reciprocity
frequent
episodes of
interaction that
are
characterized
by a balanced,
give and take
relationship;
Contingency
interactions that
have an
immediate
and direct
relationship to a
childs previous
behaviors
that support
and encourage
the childs
actions,
intentions, and
communications
;
Shared Control
guidance and
direction that
facilitates
and expands
the actions and
communications
which the child
initiates or
leads;
Affect
expressive,
animated and
warm
interactions
that are
characterized
by enjoyment or
delight in
interacting with
the child;
Match
interactions and
requests that
are adjusted to
the childs
developmental
level, current
interests, and
behavioral style
or

temperament.

Dependent
Variables and
operational
definitions

The manner in which

the children
interacted with
their mothers
16 Pivotal Behaviors a small set of
developmental
processes
that children use to
learn developmental
skills and
competencies across
the three
developmental
domains of
cognition,
communication and
social emotional
functioning.
These include the
childs social play,
initiation, exploration,
practice, problem
solving, joint activity,
joint attention,
vocalization,
intentional
communication,
conversation, trust,
empathy,
cooperation, self
regulation, feelings of
control, and feelings
of confidence

Mothers
responsiveness
toward their
children their
level of
sensitivity,
frequency of
responsivity, level
of effectiveness
and inventiveness
during their vocal
interactions with
their children

Interaction
behaviors of
the mothers
the styles of
interaction
displayed by
the mothers
based on their
levels of
responsiveness
and affect
toward their
children

Mothers affect
toward their
children the
amount of
warmth,
enjoyment,
praise,
acceptance,
expressiveness,
achievement,
pace, and
directiveness they
displayed during
interactions with
their children

Pivotal
behaviors of
the children
the amount of
attention they
demonstrated
and the
frequency of
their initiations
during RT
interactions
with their
mothers

Childrens
attention their
level of
cooperation,
attention,
persistence, and
interest they
displayed with
their mothers
Childrens
initiation their
frequency of
initiation and the
amount of joint
attention and
affect they
displayed in their
initiations with
their mothers

Childrens
developmental
skills the
childrens
developmental
abilities across
the domains of
personal-social,
language, fine
motor, gross
motor, and
language
cognitive

Pivotal
behavior - the
engagement
between the
mother-child
dyads during RT
in terms of
persistence,
attention,
involvement/int
erest, initiation,
cooperation,
joint attention,
and affect
Parent
interactive style
the way that
each mother
interacted with
her child in
terms of her
level of
responsiveness,
affect,
achievement
orientation, and
directiveness

Mothers style
of interaction
with their
children the
amount of
responsiveness
and affect they
exhibited when
interacting with
their children
during RT

Childrens
social
interactive
behavior the
degree in which
the children
were able to
display
attention,
persistence,
interest,
cooperation,
initiation, joint
attention, and
affect during RT
interactions
Childrens
socioemotional
functioning
the children's
levels of
temperament,
attention,
attachment,
social behavior,
play, vocal and
oral behavior,
senses and
movement, and
stimulation and
self-injury

Results

All the children

made remarkable
developmental and
social emotional
improvements when
their parents used
Responsive
Teaching with them
Changes in
mothers
responsiveness
during intervention
accounted for 20% of
the variance
in changes in
childrens pivotal
behavior
The mothers
improvements in
responsiveness were
related both to
increases in their
childrens pivotal
behavior and
improvements in
developmental and
social-emotional
well-being

Usability

Responsive
teaching strategies
are highly effective at
enhancing the
development of
children
with autism and other
developmental
disabilities

The mothers
doing RT showed
great increases
and
improvements in
their
responsiveness,
affect, and
directiveness
when interacting
with their children
The children
receiving RT
showed
significant
improvements in
their
developmental
skills across all
domains

RT strategies in
this study were
effective at
encouraging
mothers
to focus more on
responding to and
supporting their
childrens selfinitiated behavior
and discouraging
mothers from
teaching and
controlling
This study
supports the fact
that RT
is an effective
intervention for
young children
with
Down syndrome
More research is
still needed to
test the

Both mothers
showed
improvements
in
responsiveness
to their
children and
improvements
in their childs
levels of
engagement
during RT

Improvements
in the
childrens
language and
personal social
development
Mothers
reported that
Responsive
Teaching
helped them
learn to
interact more
effectively with
their children
and
that this
resulted in
longer and
more enjoyable
interactions
with them
This study
shows that RT
is a potentially
useful
intervention for
Turkish
parents.
It points to
the
fact that RT
may be an
effective way
of addressing
the
developmental
needs of
children
with disabilities
in Turkey.

Mothers
displayed
significant
increases
in
responsiveness
and affect when
interacting with
their children
Mothers of
children with
PDDs made
greater
increases in
responsiveness
and affect than
mothers of
children with
DDs
Children
showed
improvement in
each of the
pivotal
behaviors
Children made
significant
improvements
in their
cognitive,
communication,
and
socioemotional
functioning
The results of
this study prove
that RT can
effectively
enhance the
development of
Children with
PDD

80% of the
mothers
increased their
level of
responsiveness
during
intervention
Children
showed
significant
improvements
in all of their
socialinteractive
behaviors
Children also
showed
significant
improvements
in
socioemotional
functioning
during
intervention

The results of
this study
showed
improved socialemotional
functioning in a
sample of
20 children with
autism
The study
shows the
potential role
that parental
responsiveness
plays in
promoting
children's socialemotional
functioning and
suggests that
pivotal
developmental
behaviors may
play an
important
mediating role

generalization of
RT for a more
diverse
population of
children with
Down syndrome
Citation

(Mahoney, Perales,
Wiggers, & Herman,
2006)

(Karaaslan,
Ozcan, &
Mahoney, 2013)

in children's
social-emotional
well-being

(Karaaslan,
Diken, &
Mahoney,
2011)

(Mahoney &
Perales, 2005)

(Mahoney &
Perales, 2003)

References
Karaaslan, O., Diken, I., & Mahoney, G. (2011). The Effectiveness of the Responsive
Teaching Parent-mediated Developmental Intervention Programme in Turkey:
A pilot study. International Journal of Disability, Development and Education,
359-372.
Karaaslan, Ozcan, & Mahoney, G. (2013). Effectiveness of Responsive Teaching With
Children With Down Syndrome. Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities,
458-469.
Mahoney, G., & Perales, F. (2003). Using Relationship-Focused Intervention to
Enhance the Social-Emotional Functioning of Young Children with Autism
Spectrum Disorder. Topics in Early Childhood Special Education, 77-89.
Mahoney, G., & Perales, F. (2005). Relationship-Focused Early Intervention With
Children With Pervasive Developmental Disorders and Other Disorders: A
Comparative Study. Journal of Developmental & Behavioral Pediatrics, 77-85.
Mahoney, G., Perales, F., Wiggers, B., & Herman, B. (2006). Responsive Teaching:
Early intervention for children with Down syndrome and other disabilities.
Down Syndrome Research and Practice, 18-28.