Effect of observational training of parents in the early stimulation of trisomy‐21 babies

Abstract

This research was undertaken in order to study a new application of the vicarious learning, and thereby ascertain whether subjects undergoing early stimulation would benefit from this type of learning. To this end we started out from a fundamental premise: participation by the parents in the training of their children. An experimental study was designed with two training groups. In the first the parents learned the training model vicariously from the clinician. In the second group the parents were taught through written instructions. The analyses of the results established statistically significant differences in gross motor and language in favour of the vicariously trained group.