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Directive and responsive behaviors of mothers in familiar and unfamiliar toy play with and without a single message voice output communication aid
Abstract
Twenty-five mother-child dyads participated in three types of toy play both with and without a BIGmack, a single-message voice-output communication aid (VOCA). Participants were mothers of children who were considered at-risk for being nonspeaking. A quantitative within-group research design was used for this project comparing maternal directive and responsive behaviors across toy play activities. The mothers were asked to play with their children using three types of toys: a) familiar, b) unfamiliar, and c) complex toys, both with and without a BIGmack VOCA that had been programmed to say "more" when pressed. Dyads participated in two experimental sessions in their home. During the first home visit, dyads were asked to "play and have fun" and asked to play with all three types of toys without the BIGmack, allowing for collection of baseline data of responsive and directive maternal behaviors in each type of toy play. At the next home visit, children and mothers were separated within the house and then children were taught to activate the BIGmack to request "more" in play. Children and mothers were then reunited and again asked to "play and have fun" with the same three types of toys with the BIGmack present. The dyad's play was recorded for a target of 10 minutes for each type of toy, and the mother's interactions using each type of toy were coded for responsive and directive behaviors. Rate-per-minute of maternal directive and responsive behaviors was analyzed using a repeated measures analysis of variance (ANOVA). Results indicated that mothers used significantly more responsive behaviors when playing with their own toys than with unfamiliar or complex toys.
Subject Area
Early childhood education
Recommended Citation
Medeiros, Kara F, "Directive and responsive behaviors of mothers in familiar and unfamiliar toy play with and without a single message voice output communication aid" (2011). ETD collection for University of Nebraska-Lincoln. AAI3466574.
https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/dissertations/AAI3466574