Background: Identifying risk and protective factors for language development informs interventions for children with developmental language disorder (DLD). Maternal responsive and intrusive communicative behaviours are associated with language development. Mother-child interaction quality may influence how children use these behaviours in language…

The concept of bidirectionality represents a process of mutual influence between parent and child, whereby each influences the other as well as the dyadic relationship. Despite the widespread acceptance of bidirectional models of influence, there is still a lack of integration of such models in current research designs. Research on…

Recent re-conceptualisation of paternal involvement (Pleck, J. H. (2010). Paternal involvement: Revised conceptualization and theoretical linkages with child outcomes. In M. Lamb (Ed.), "The role of the father in child development" (5th ed., pp. 67-107). London: Wiley), while proving fruitful, has yet to be applied to investigations into…

A team of facilitators describe the process and content of portfolios they create for families attending weekly playgroup sessions based on the philosophy and practices of the Parents Interacting with Infants (PIWI) model. The parent-child portfolios are a form of authentic assessment and highlight children's development within the context of…

This article presents a triadic interaction model that builds on and expands the strengths of the parent-infant dyad by providing contextual and interpersonal support for their interactions. The model gives explicit attention to the interactions among the three members of the early intervention triad: child, parent, and interventionist.…

This paper presents a review of the literature on stress and coping in families with children having spina bifida and offers a transactional model to study the parent child interaction in these families. The conclusions drawn from the literature review are the following: both parent and child in the family setting need to be considered as both…

The article describes a high-risk infant program which is designed to facilitate mothers' use of positive communicative interaction strategies. The various components of the Mother-Infant Communication Project model are described, as are the specific communicative strategies targeted by the program, and the intervention techniques utilized.…

Synthesizes the research on infant-parent interaction and proposes a model for introducing and including infant-parent interaction in family-centered early intervention with young children having disabilities. The model stresses the family's vision for the child's future and the family's role in active decision making. (DB)

This response to Baird and Peterson (EC 617 085) suggests that the original authors' conceptions of family-centered philosophy and intervention in parent-child interaction are inaccurate. They note the importance of parent-child interactions and the need for intervention procedures to be based on the parent-child interaction literature. (DB)

This theoretical paper explores the implications of some modifications and extensions of the Transactional Analysis (TA) theory of personality and attempts to understand some specific aspects of human nature and behavior in evolutionary terms. "Ego State" as used in TA designates both a structural and functional unit of the personality.…

This article describes an interaction guidance model in which videotapes are used with families of young children, to help parents understand developmental issues, explore feelings regarding problematic relationships, help change parental representations of maladaptive relationships, and observe differences between fathers and mothers in parenting…

A conceptual model describing the environmental factors and parent and child characteristics that contribute to the development of conduct disorder in early childhood is proposed. Environmental stressors associated with poverty, poor parenting strategies, and child deficits in communication skills are posited to be negative factors that affect…

This paper addresses itself to the reasons why suicide tends to repeat in some families. Factors include entire family exposure to stresses, grief, and guilt induced by suicide, the provision of a model by the original suicide, suicidogenic interpersonal styles in families, suicidogenic child-rearing practice, and innate predispositions to…

This paper presents examples of nonconscious or intuitive parental behaviors in parent-infant dyads in which the parent or child is deaf, discusses these behaviors in terms of the ways they help infants adapt to the postnatal environment and transition from preverbal to verbal development, and examines difficulties in parent-infant interactions.…