Interpreting Parent - Infant Interactions: Cross-Cultural Lessons

All early interventions are based on assumptions about how young children develop and learn. Assumptions about the parent-child relationship are central to the philosophies and missions of many early intervention programs. Specific characteristics of parent-child interaction may become part of the assessment process and also incorporated into intervention approaches. However, the developmental literature on which these characteristics are based is derived from a culturally restricted sample. Drawing from interviews with six mothers, this article explores the range and coalescence of ideas that mothers from two different cultural backgrounds (white American and Korean) have about interactions with their 12-month-old babies in two situations important in early intervention: social interactive play and joint play with objects. Mothers' ideas about interaction in these situations were highly consistent with ideas on early development and parenting found in other cross-cultural studies.