PARENTS AS TEACHERS OF THEIR OWN LEARNING DISABLED CHILDREN

Fathers’ and mothers’ distancing strategies towards toddlers

Fathers’ and mothers’ distancing strategies towards preschoolers were studied in 30-month-old ( N = 13) and 42-month-old ( N = 15) parent-children dyads, using Sigel’s scheme. This coding scheme concerns either direct verbal requests (or denominations), or indirect demands about presented objects. Afree play situation included objects that allowed several activities, functional or not (doll, little cars, etc). The aim was twofold. First, distancing was linked to the child’s age and to the sex of parent with the assumption that fathers would be more challenging. Second, children’s symbolic activity was linked to parental distancing strategies at each age. Results showed that there was a significant effect of children’s age on the distancing measures as well as on children’s symbolic activity. The hypothesis of a more challenging father was not supported. The child’s symbolic activity was better predicted by mother’s distancing than by father’s. Such results indicate a need to consider more complex relationships between paternal interaction and children’s outcomes and to take into account extra-familial contributions.

The metaphor of scaffolding: its utility for the field of learning disabilities

Over the past 20 years, an increasing number of psychologists and educators have used the notion of scaffolding as a metaphor for the process by which adults (and more knowledgeable peers) guide children's learning and development. The purpose of the present article is to provide a critical analysis of the scaffolding metaphor, with particular emphasis on its applications to the case of atypical learners. In the initial sections of the article, the origins and early applications of the metaphor are sketched. With this as background, criticisms of the metaphor raised by others are reviewed, and a proposal for an enriched version of the metaphor is presented. At the heart of the proposed revision is an emphasis on the communicational dynamics and conceptual reorganization involved in adult-child interactions. With an enriched metaphor as a frame, the next section reviews applications of the scaffolding metaphor to the study of parent-child interactions and teacher-student instructional activities involving children with learning disabilities. The strengths and limitations of this work are evaluated, and proposals are made for how to reap further benefits from applications of the scaffolding metaphor to analyses of the development and instruction of children with learning disabilities.