Understanding Family Interactions:

The purpose of this study was to examine the reactions by different family members to various social behaviors by a target child to determine what are the most probable consequences that child will experience. These analyses were based on the home observations of 47 nonclinical families with an identified target child between the ages of four and eight. The probabilities of several possible responses to the target child were computed as well as the conditional probability of those responses given different target child behaviors. Which responses were most likely to be emitted by family members in general and differences in the response patterns of parents and siblings are reported. IrnpIications of these analyses for understanding normative family interactions and for clinical intervention are discussed.