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Readers' comments on Jeanette A. McCollum's "PARENT-CHILD INTERACTION WHEN BABIES HAVE DOWN SYNDROME: PERCEPTIONS OF TAIWANESE MOTHERS"

Dear ISEI Members, Thanks so much to all of you who participated in the Infants and Young Children Articles and Comments Page on the ISEI Website.

The questions and comments for Jeanette McCollum's article with Yu-Jun Chen entitled "PARENT-CHILD INTERACTION WHEN BABIES HAVE DOWN SYNDROME: PERCEPTIONS OF TAIWANESE MOTHERS" and Jeanette's responses (in CAPS) can be found below.

Please note that two new articles have been placed on the Current IYC Articles. All previous articles will continue to be available by accessing the “IYC Previous Articles”

Best regards

Mike Guralnick
Chair, ISEI

COMMENTS FROM WEB PAGE WITH JEANETTE A. MCCOLLUM’S REPLIES FOLLOWING (IN CAPS):

I appreciate the focus on belief systems, as also in our Austrian study (1998) we saw, that information about toddlers with DS could be crucial on behalf of parental stress. It would be interesting to follow the psycho-social development of children - both from optimistic and pessimistic parents and to look for possible correlations to child development-parameters. (3/15/2003)

IT CERTAINLY WOULD BE INTERESTING. ONE WOULD THINK THAT THE PARENT'S UNDERLYING PERSPECTIVE OF THE CHILD WOULD INFLUENCE BOTH OPPORTUNITIES AND INTERACTIONS, WHICH IN TURN WOULD INFLUENCE CHILDREN'S DEVELOPMENT. IT ALSO WOULD BE IMPORTANT TO EXPLORE POTENTIAL REASONS (E.G., ACCESS TO RESOURCES, DEGREE OF CHILD NEED) FOR PARENTS' HAVING PESSIMISTIC VS. OPTIMISTIC PERSPECTIVES.

Is it possible to have the interview protocol and the coding? I am a Portuguese researcher, I have done studies parent-child interaction with Down Syndrome babies and mothers and would be very interested in recieving detailed information on the methodology of your cross-cultural study. (1/30/2003)

WE'D BE PLEASED TO SHARE IF YOU WILL CONTACT ONE OF US.

Are there belief and attitude scales you would recommend that could be helpful in cross-cultural research? Interviews are very difficult to do and are time-consuming to analyze. (1/15/2003)

WHILE DIFFICULT AND TIME CONSUMING, WE CHOSE INTERVIEWS AS OUR METHODOLOGY BECAUSE WE FELT THAT IT WOULD YIELD A MORE VALID UNDERSTANDING OF PARENTS' PERSPECTIVES ACROSS CULTURES. FOR EXAMPLE, SCALES DEVELOPED WITHIN THE CONTEXT OF ONE CULTURAL PERSPECTIVE DO NOT NECESSARILY CAPTURE IMPORTANT IDEAS THAT MIGHT BE IMPORTANT IN ANOTHER. IN ADDITION, OUR GOAL WAS NOT TO TEST PARTICULAR HYPOTHESES, BUT INSTEAD TO DEVELOP BROAD UNDERSTANDINGS THAT COULD EMERGE ONLY FROM READING AND DISCUSSING MANY INTERVIEWS.

Will mothers' beliefs and understandings change as the child gets older? In what ways? (1/14/2003)

THIS IS AN IMPORTANT VARIABLE THAT WE HAVE NOT YET ANALYZED, ALTHOUGH WE HAVE BEEN INTERVIEWING MOTHERS OF CHILDREN OF DIFFERENT AGES. WE ARE EXPECTING THAT AGE-RELATED PERCEPTIONS OF CHILDREN WILL BE DIFFERENT ACROSS CULTURES.

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