Mother-child and father-child interaction in families Of children with Down Syndrome

Healthy parent-child interaction is as essential to the early development of children with Down Syndrome as it is for typically developing children. In early childhood, this transaction is largely regulated by reciprocal emotional exchanges between partners Through their caregiving, parents supply their children with the experiences they need for both physical and psychological growth. Contemporary opinion is that positive emotional sharing is an indispensable frame to effective caregiving of children with an intellectual disability, but at the same time specific cognitive and/or motor impairments may short-circuit the child's ability to understand and exchange emotions In this chapter we first outline the current findings about parent-child interaction in children with Down Syndrome. Then we report in details the results of two studies about children with Down Syndrome in which we compared mother-child and father-child dyads with respect to some pivotal aspects of parent-child interaction, namely affective quality and play behaviours; for each study, the differences and similarities between mothers and fathers as well as the children's contribution to relationship functioning are presented. The discussion of the findings refer to the theoretical perspective according to which dyadic interactions based on emotional involvement may lead to enhanced cognitive functioning in children with Down Syndrome. Finally, the clinical implications of this framework are discussed. © 2009 Nova Science Publishers, Inc. All rights reserved.