Teaching Parents New Skills 9 9 Teaching Parents New Skills to Support Their Young Children’s Development

Teaching parents new skills to support the development of their young children with developmen-tal disabilities has been controversial in the field of early intervention even though there is considerable empirical evidence supporting this approach. We propose that teaching parents to implement family-centered interventions can be highly effective by: (a) allowing parents to choose when to learn new skills; (b) teaching parents strategies that are empirically based, well-matched to their child’s developmental needs, and intended to be implemented in naturally occurring interactions between parents and children; and (c) teaching parents in a skillful and individualized manner. We outline the skills that parent educators need in order to be effective, then, we discuss a model for preparing professionals to teach parents. Throughout this article, we draw on empirical data and anecdotal examples from our ongoing research on teaching parents naturalistic language intervention strategies. Key words: naturalistic language interventions, parent education, parent-implemented interventions, professional training PARENTS ARE their children’s first andmost enduring teachers. In the course of normal development, parents support their children’s language, social, and academic development (Hart & Risley, 1995). There is systematic evidence over the last 30 years that teaching parents specific strategies to support their children’s development can be effective. Beginning in the late 1960s, researchers have reported positive effects of parents ’ imple-mentation of behavior management strategies with children who have conduct disorder