Parental scaffolding of the discourse of children and adolescents with intellectual disability: the case of, referential expressions.

Individuals with intellectual disability find the process of establishing referents to be an especially challenging component of discourse. The present study was designed to examine whether these problems partly result from a failure of parents to appropriately scaffold the discourse participation of individuals with intellectual disability. Children and adolescents with intellectual disability and their parents participated in two dyadic non-face-to-face referential tasks which afforded parents an opportunity to scaffold their children's behaviour as speaker and as listener. Comparisons were made with parents and their typically developing children who completed the same tasks. It was found that the parents of individuals with intellectual disability scaffolded their children's discourse participation to the same extent, as effectively and in the same manner as the parents of the typically developing children. The former were also found to adjust their scaffolding according to their children's level of behavioural competence. In summary, there is no evidence that parents contribute to the referential problems of individuals with intellectual disability.