The effects of relationship focused intervention on Korean parents and their young children with disabilities.

This study was conducted to examine the impact of Relationship Focused Intervention (RFI) on a sample of Korean mothers and their preschool-aged children with disabilities. Subjects were 18 mothers of children with developmental problems (ages 3-8 years). Ten of these mothers were assigned to an RFI Treatment group and eight to a No RFI Control group. The RFI was adopted from the Family/Child Curriculum (Mahoney, G. (1999; Family/Child Curriculum: A relationship focused approach to parent education/early intervention. Tallmadge, OH: Family Child Learning Center). This intervention focused on teaching mothers to use responsive interactive strategies through a process of modeling, coaching, role-playing and video feedback. It was implemented with parents during weekly group and individual intervention sessions that were conducted over three months period. Comparison of pre- and post-intervention assessments of parent-child interaction indicated that RFI was effective at encouraging parents to become more responsive, affective and achievement oriented with their children. These changes in mothers' interactional style were associated with an 18% increase in children's interactive behaviors. Regression analyses indicated that increases in children's behavior were associated positively with maternal responsiveness and negatively with maternal achievement orientation. Results from this study are discussed in terms of (a) implementing RFI with Korean mothers and (b) the mechanisms by which RFI promotes children's development.