Responsive Teaching for children with special needs

I first stumbled on 'Responsive Teaching' on the Down Syndrome Education site. What got me hooked was the line which said that it is the parents who have the most significant impact on their child's early development. It was like a breath of fresh air.

I will refrain from providing too many details in this blog post but would definitely like to get you started on knowing more about Responsive Teaching. Very briefly, Responsive Teaching is a parent-led early intervention program that addresses three areas of development: cognition, communication, and social emotional functioning. The curriculum, developed by child development specialists Gerald Mahoney and James MacDonald, is based on a series of research studies conducted over 11 years that indicated that parents who use Responsive Teaching significantly promote gains in cognition, communication and social emotional functioning in their children.

Gerald Mahoney and James MacDonald have written a book on Responsive Teaching (picture below) which is available on Pro-ed. Though I have not had the opportunity to read this book (I hope to shortly), my gut feel is that this book will prove to be invaluable to a parent who has a young child with special needs.

For parents who don't have access to the book, here are some very good links on Responsive Teaching:
Responsive Teaching: Early intervention for children with Down syndrome and other disabilities  and
Responsive Teaching

I found this whole idea of Responsive Teaching quite interesting and worth a try. All of the recommendations are completely doable and the best part for me was knowing that the program has been validated. Parents can indeed help to improve the developmental outcomes in their special needs child. This gave me a sense of confidence - in my child and also in myself.

Thanks for reading