Communicating Partners
Dr. James D. MacDonald's Website
Helping Parents Help Children. Programs for Parents, Therapists & Educators
The ECO Partnership programs for Late Talking Children come from a series of research studies from 1971 to 1995 at the Ohio State University, specifically at the Nisonger Center for Developmental Disabilities.
We studied over 400 late talking children with their parents and teachers. We developed several tests and treatment programs on the basis of many video taped studies of both preverbal and early verbal children. With student assistance, the studies resulted in 8 Ph.D. dissertations and 24 Master’s theses.
The research findings have been published in over 25 articles in peer reviewed journals, including the Journal of Speech and Hearing Research, Journal of Speech and Hearing Disorders, Language Speech and Hearing in the Schools, Infants and Young Children, TASH-The Association for Severely Handicapped, Infant Toddler Intervention, Exceptional Parent four books and a series of 8 video training tapes.
The book Becoming Partners with Children ( see publications) reports over 15 years of research on the topics of Social Play, Nonverbal Communication, Language, Conversations and Parent communication styles of over 200 families. Extensive quantitative and qualitative data on treatment programs for 25 late talking children are presented with statistical findings on reliability, validity and behavior change of both the children and the parents.
Please write us and request copies of research reports demonstrating the effectiveness of the model. Administrators are often pressed for evidence for programs; these reports are written in terms both for professionals and for the family and layman who will be responsible for the program.
SELECTED PUBLICATIONS OF RESEARCH SUPPORTING THE ECO COMMUNICATION PROGRAMS
MacDonald, J., and Blott, J., An Experimental Parent child language intervention program. Journal of Speech and Hearing Research (1974). MacDonald, J., Environmental Language Inventory (ELI). Columbus, Ohio; Charles Merrill (1978) MacDonald, J., Language through Conversation; in Warren and Rogers-Warren; Teaching Functional Language (1984) MacDonald, J. and Gillette, Y., Conversational development in children with language delays. In McLean and Snyder-McLean; Educational Seminars in Speech and Language. (1984). Lombardino, L, Maternal communication with children with Down Syndrome. A doctoral dissertation at Ohio State University. Lombardino, L., and Magnan, N., Parents as language trainers. Exceptional Children, (1983). MacDonald, J., and Carroll, J., A partnership model for communicating with Infants at risk. Journal of Infants and Young Children (1992) Owens, R. and MacDonald, J, Communicative uses of early speech in children with Down Syndrome. American Journal of Mental Deficiency (1982). Horstmeier, D. Ready Set Go; talk to me. And educational model for early language. (1978). Rabidoux, P., Parent child interaction styles during early storybook reading. An analysis and application of the ECO model for intervention. A Ph.D. dissertation at the Ohio State University (1994). MacDonald, J. Becoming Partners with Children; a developmental text for interactive language development and delays. Chicago; Applied Symbolix (1989).Gillette, Y. Ecological programs for parent child communication development; models and cases. Chicago: Applied Symbolix (1989).Gillette, Y and MacDonald, J, ECO Resources; a curriculum for early communication development. Applied Symbolix (1989).