Results of a behavior modification training program for parents and teachers

Training parents as therapists or managers for their own children is a fairly recent development in behavior modification, one which is justified in terms of both efficiency and economy (Bernal, Duryee, Pruett and Burns, 1968; Lindsley, 1966; Wahler, 1969; Wahler, Winkel, Peterson and Morrison, 1965; Zeilberger, Sampen and Sloane, 1968.) To date, most published work in the area presents data from individual cases, The purpose of this paper is to summarize the results of a behavior modification program in which parents, and occasionally teachers, were trained to be managers for their children. The staff of the Psychology Department of a Children's Rehabilitation Unit conducted the program and acted as direct advisors to parents and teachers, or as trainers to doctoral students who advised parents and teachers.¹The emphasis was on training the managers to (1) focus on the child's behavior rather than on underlying psychopathology, (2) analyze the troublesome behavior in terms of the environmental events currently maintaining it rather than to seek historical geneses, and (3) alter events subsequent to the behavior or to rearrange the contingencies with which consequential events were presented, rather than to develop insights into their own or their child's emotional states.