The effectiveness of an early intervention program based on naturalistic teaching for parents of children with down syndrome on parents and their children

The purpose of this research is to examine the effectivenes of the Natural Teaching Based Early Intervention Program (DÖDEM) (www.down-dodem.com) has been developed in order to strengthen interaction of parents with their children with Down Syndrome, and to introduce them the natural teaching strategies which may be helpful to support their child's development in the daily routines, activities and transitions. Two work groups were organized for the research. While the DÖDEM program was provided face-to-face through group family training sessions and home visits for a group of participants, it was followed remotely by another group of participants via a tablet computer. The study was conducted with 10 parents and children with Down Syndrome aged 25-48 months. The Convergent Design, which is based on interpreting quantitative and qualitative findings by combining or comparing, was used for the research as a basic design; and the Static-Group Pretest-Posttest Experimental Design was used to design the research. Findings show us, both the parents who implemented the DÖDEM program by face-to-face trainings and those who implemented the program remotely via a tablet computer were found to make significant progress in interactional behaviours and increase the usage frequency of the natural teaching strategies. In addition it was found that pivotal behaviors, verbal imitation outputs of the children in both groups were significantly increased and their cognitive and language developments were significantly progressed. Continuing effects of the program were observed one month after the implementation. It was determined that the results obtained from the interviews with the parents supports these results.