S. Falco - Academia.edu (original) (raw)

Papers by S. Falco

Background: Parental speech directed to young children is crucial for many developmental reasons.... more Background: Parental speech directed to young children is crucial for many developmental reasons. For example, language is among the most immediate and relevant means parents have to convey both affect and information to children. Speech directed to children has been thoroughly investigated in typical development, and associations between parent speech and child language, social, and emotional development are prominent in the literature (Blount, 1990; Garton, 1992; Hampson & Nelson, 1993; Longobardi, 1992; Stern, 1985; Thiessen, Hill, & Saffran, 2005). However, the characteristics of parental speech to children with intellectual disabilities are far less well documented (cf. Longobardi, Caselli, & Colombini, 1998; Spiker, Boyce, & Boyce, 2002; de Falco et al. 2010). Generally, parents of children with intellectual disabilities are believed to adapt to their children’s mental and language level in a way believed to promote their children’s communication and attention skills (Legerste...

Advances in Learning and Behavioral Disabilities

ABSTRACT School inclusion of students with disabilities in ordinary classes is a multidimensional... more ABSTRACT School inclusion of students with disabilities in ordinary classes is a multidimensional phenomena that may be evaluated with respect to different dimensions: social acceptance, social interactions, and supports toward the student with disabilities, teachers’ and parents’ attitudes toward inclusion, and students’ mental representations of the peer with disabilities. The purpose of the present review is to present several methods for evaluating school inclusion: sociometric techniques, systematic observation, questionnaires, and student drawings. Additionally, an integrated use of these methods is presented to plan interventions to facilitate school integration.

Frontiers in Psychology, 2014

Journal of Applied Research in Intellectual Disabilities, 2010

Developmental Psychology, 2008

American Journal on Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities, 2009

Child solitary and collaborative mother–child play with 21 children with Down syndrome and 33 men... more Child solitary and collaborative mother–child play with 21 children with Down syndrome and 33 mental-age-matched typically developing children were compared. In solitary play, children with Down syndrome showed less exploratory but similar symbolic play compared to typically developing children. From solitary to collaborative play, children with Down syndrome increased their exploratory play, attaining the same level as typically developing children. Pretense significantly increased from solitary to collaborative play only in typically developing children. Differences between mothers' play in the two groups mirrored those between their children. Both groups showed similar attunement and synchrony. Mothers contribute to the play development of children with Down syndrome through their own adaptation to their children's limitations and potentialities.

Research in Developmental Disabilities, 2012

This study investigates mother-child interaction and its associations with play in children with ... more This study investigates mother-child interaction and its associations with play in children with Down syndrome (DS). There is consensus that mother-child interaction during play represents an important determinant of typical children&amp;#39;s play development. Concerning children with DS, few studies have investigated mother-child interaction in terms of the overall emotional quality of dyadic interaction and its effect on child play. A sample of 28 children with DS (M age = 3 years) took part in this study. In particular, we studied whether the presence of the mother in an interactional context affects the exploratory and symbolic play of children with DS and the interrelation between children&amp;#39;s level of play and dyadic emotional availability. Children showed significantly more exploratory play during collaborative play with mothers than during solitary play. However, the maternal effect on child symbolic play was higher in children of highly sensitive mothers relative to children whose mothers showed lower sensitivity, the former displaying more symbolic play than the latter in collaborative play. Results offer some evidence that dyadic emotional availability and child play level are associated in children with DS, consistent with the hypothesis that dyadic interactions based on a healthy level of emotional involvement may lead to enhanced cognitive functioning.

Parenting, 2009