DEFINING CHILD NONCOMPLIANCE: AN EXAMINATION OF TEMPORAL PARAMETERS

This study examined compliance parameters for 53 clinic-referred and nonreferred children, ages 2 to 10 years. Although there were significant differences between the referred and nonreferred samples for percentage compliance, there were no significant differences between the referred and nonreferred samples in terms of initiation or completion latencies. The average initiation latency was 5.92 s, whereas 98% of the sample initiated compliance within 14 s. Younger children did take longer to complete tasks. Results suggest that the use of short latencies in defining noncompliance may represent overly conservative criteria.     

THE EFFECTS OF A CHILD'S SELF-EVALUATION PROGRAM ON COMPLIANCE WITH PARENTAL INSTRUCTIONS IN THE HOME

A self-evaluation program was implemented with a kindergarten-aged boy in the home to increase compliance with parent instructions and decrease inappropriate verbal behavior. The self-evaluation package included the child's assessing the appropriateness of his behavior in 5-min intervals, receiving chips for positive self-evaluations, and exchanging chips for a reward following experimental sessions. In a reversal design, analyses were conducted of the effectiveness of the self-evaluation program, the requisite conditions for effective child behavior change with a self-evaluation approach, and the parent's efficiency in using the self-evaluation package. The self-evaluation procedures typically resulted in increased compliant behavior and decreased inappropriate behavior, although the effects generally weakened with time. Behavioral gains were greater and better maintained when the self-evaluation procedures were preceded by a phase of external evaluation via the mother than by baseline, suggesting that self-evaluation procedures may serve more to maintain the effects of external evaluation rather than to induce their own changes. The parent generally was efficient in implementing the procedures. Research and clinical implications for using self-evaluation procedures in a home setting are discussed.     

A Longitudinal Assessment of Teacher Perceptions of Parent Involvement in Children's Education and School Performance

This study examines the ways in which parental involvement in children's education changes over time and how it relates to children's social and academic functioning in school. Teachers provided information on parent involvement and school performance for 1,205 urban, kindergarten through third-grade children for 3 consecutive years. They rated the following four dimensions of parent involvement: frequency of parent-teacher contact, quality of the parent-teacher interactions, participation in educational activities at home, and participation in school activites. As predicted, the frequency of parent-teacher contacts, quality of parent-teacher interactions, and parent participation at school declined from Years 1 to 3. Every parent involvement variable correlated moderately with school performance and parent involvement in Years 1 and 2, and accounted for a small, but significant amount of variance in Year 3 performance after controlling for initial performance level. Participation in educational activities at home predicted the widest range of performance variables. Results suggest that enhancing parental involvement in children's schooling relates to improvements in school functioning.     

Current Status of Psychosocial Intervention Research for Pediatric Outpatient Surgery

We reviewed 20 published studies of psychosocial interventions (i.e., preoperative preparation, parental presence) for children undergoing outpatient surgical procedures. The effectiveness of different intervention strategies on child and parent outcomes is summarized. Few positive effects were found for any of the psychosocial interventions. However, only a small number of randomized controlled trials were conducted and many of the studies using quasi-experimental designs had significant methodological problems that limited the interpretation of their findings. Research recommendations are described such as strengthening methodological rigor, making intervention strategies relevant to outpatient surgery, and using developmentally appropriate intervention strategies.     

Children of Incarcerated Mothers

We review the literature on children whose mothers are incarcerated in jails or prisons. These children typically experience a great many risk factors besides their mothers' incarceration, including poverty, drug and alcohol problems in their families, community violence, and multiple changes in caregivers. Children's lives are greatly disrupted when mothers are arrested, and most children show emotional and behavioral problems. The impact this has depends on the age of the child, the alternate caregiving arrangements, and the course of the mother's incarceration. Children of incarcerated mothers experience internalizing (fear, withdrawal, depression, emotional disturbance) and externalizing (anger, fighting, stealing, substance abuse) problems, as well as heightened rates of school failure and eventual criminal activity and incarceration. Research in this area is scarce and often of poor quality. A research agenda which is guided by a transactional, ecological, and developmental model, and which examines children's well-being over the course of the mothers' incarceration is suggested.     

Evaluation of family intervention through unobtrusive audio recordings: experiences in "bugging" children

Five children referred to a child-family intervention program wore a radio transmitter in the home during pre-intervention and termination assessments. The transmitter broadcast to a receiver-recording apparatus in the home (either activated by an interval timer at predetermined "random" times or by parents at predetermined "picked" times). "Picked" times were parent-selected situations during which problems typically occurred (e.g., bedtime). Parents activated the recorder regularly whether or not problems occurred. Child-deviant, parent-negative, and parent-commanding behaviors were significantly higher at the picked times during pretest than at random times. At posttest, behaviors in all three classes were substantially reduced at picked times, but not at random times. For individual subject data, reductions occurred in at least two of the three dependent variables for three of the five cases during random time assessments. In general, the behavioral outcome data corresponded to parent-attitude reports and parent-collected observation data.     

AN ANALYSIS OF MULTIPLE MISPLACED PARENTAL SOCIAL CONTINGENCIES1

This study analyzed the training of a mother to modify five subclasses of her attention to her young child's noncompliance with instructions, and also displayed the changes in her child's behavior correlated with these events. Training in four subclasses consisted of teaching the mother to withhold various forms of social attention to her daughter's undesired behavior; training in the fifth subclass involved introduction of a brief room-timeout procedure for noncompliance. The effectiveness of the parent-training procedure, consisting of initial instructions and daily feedback, was demonstrated through a multiple-baseline design across the five subclasses of parent behavior. Sequential decreases in the first three subclasses of the mother's social attention to undesired child behavior resulted in incomplete improvements in some child responses; however, a decrease in the fourth subclass resulted in a significant increase in undesired child behavior. Complete remediation of all child behaviors was achieved following the training of a timeout procedure for noncompliance. Postchecks conducted up to 16 weeks later showed that these effects were durable.     

PARENTAL TRAINING OF THE PLURAL MORPHEME IN NORMAL TODDLERS1

Experimental studies with young normal children can provide useful strategy for the functional analysis of language. Research by Whitehurst (Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 1972, 13 , 502–515) exemplifies this approach, in which 2-yr-old children were exposed to a training procedure that involved imitation and differential reinforcement for a two-word productive sequence of the adjective-noun form. Results indicated that these young children could be trained to produce rudimentary novel utterances that were grammatically appropriate. More recently, Hursh and Sherman (Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 1973, 15 , 328–339) reported the existence of a functional relationship between parental modelling and reinforcement of vocalizations, and increased instances of these vocalizations in young (15- to 20-month-old) children. These demonstrations relate to a summary of findings with linguistically deviant populations discussed by Sherman (Advances in Child Development, 1971). The present study attempts to extend these “generative” investigations to normal children and to provide useful information for those interested in teaching speech forms to them. Modelling and differential reinforcement were used by three mothers to establish the use of the plural morpheme in the speech of their 19- to 25-month-old children. During training trials, verbal praise was presented contingent on correct labelling of singular and plural items, while correct labelling was modelled if the child responded incorrectly. Children learned to label specifically trained sets of singular and plural items and also exhibited correct labelling when asked to label never-trained singular and plural items. After establishing correct usage, the same training procedures were used to train reversed labelling (plural responses to single items and singular responses to plural items). This produced a corresponding reversal of responding (both trained and untrained items) by each child for the plural items but not for singular items. Correct singular and plural labelling was recovered by returning to the initial procedures.     

COMMUNICATION SKILLS TRAINING FOR PARENTS: EXPERIMENTAL AND SOCIAL VALIDATION

Coordination of professional services on behalf of children often hinges on the involvement of informed parents. The purposes of this study were to identify and experimentally and socially validate skills required of parents for effective communication with professionals. Target skills were identified on the basis of judges' social validation ratings of (a) sample interactions between parents and professionals and (b) the behaviors comprising a resultant task analysis. Eight parents were then trained in these skills via an instructional package. Results of a multiple baseline design across subjects and grouped skill domains showed that each parent acquired the targeted skills during simulated conferences and that correct responding usually generalized to actual conferences. Independent judges validated training outcomes, and participating parents indicated satisfaction with the curriculum.     

GENERALIZATION EFFECTS FROM INTRATHERAPY ARTICULATION TRAINING: A CASE STUDY1

This study analyzed generalization effects found associated with a language-training intervention to modify the articulation (/f/ phoneme) of a 3.5-year-old boy. The McLean and Raymore Stimulus Shift Articulation Program was implemented by the subject's mother. This language training program is designed to produce setting generalization effects based on an intratherapy training model (i.e., systematic training is applied in a single setting to promote transfer effects to nontraining environments). The intervention resulted in a significant improvement in the subject's production of the /f/ phoneme within the clinical setting in response to untrained stimuli (stimulus generalization). Additionally, the subject's correct phoneme production was observed to generalize to his home and school settings (setting generalization) under “opportunity loaded” (picture prompts) and “spontaneous” (no prompts) conditions. The results provide case-study evidence that stimulus generalization, both within and across settings, may occur with exclusively intratherapy articulation training.