Gli effetti del training sulle conversazioni madre- bambino in età prescolare su eventi del passato: implicazioni evolutive e cliniche

The present paper aims at discussing the possibility of improving training forcaregivers, based on the research data, in order to increase those skills that, duringconversations with a child about past events (reminiscing), appear to favour theemergence of various abilities. Indeed, many studies report how reminiscing, ifcarried out in an elaborate, conversational style that centres on emotions, performsimportant functions in the development of narrative, self-awareness andemotional competence. On this basis, other research carried out with mother-childdyads of pre-school age and typical and atypical development has shown that specificinterventions to increase the quality of the caregiver’s reminiscing result inimprovement in the child’s narrative and socio-emotive skills, with clinical implications.After a brief review of the research regarding the effects of reminiscingon development and the effectiveness of interventions carried out with the parents,the coding schemes designed for identifying more or less functional styles ofconversation and two types of qualitatively different conversations are presented.Finally, some operating procedures for conducting training of elaborate and emotivereminiscing are suggested and commented upon.