Elsevier

Behavior Therapy

Volume 7, Issue 2, March 1976, Pages 177-184
Behavior Therapy

Two strategies of group training of parents as effective behavior modifiers

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Two groups, a combination group and a specific-focus group, each composed of four mothers who had sought assistance for behavioral difficulties with their children, were matched on several variables. Parents in both groups attended weekly, 2-hr sessions over a 10-week span. The first four sessions of the combination training group were devoted to teaching parents the principles of behavior modification, while session 5 through 10 concentrated on changing target behaviors. The specific-focus group dealt solely with target problems during the 10-week program. Combination group mothers were able to deal effectively with a wide range of current behavioral problems. The combination training program also had a considerable impact upon parent-child interactions in play and command settings and upon parents' perceptions of their children as measured by parents' responses to a behavior adjective checklist. Specific-focus group mothers demonstrated some improvements on these measures but they were not as marked as those of the combination group mothers. Follow-up evaluation showed that the improvements initially achieved by the combination group tended to be more stable than those attained by the specific-focus mothers.

Reference notes (4)

  • HowardO.

    Teaching a class of parents as reinforcement therapists to treat their own children

  • PumroyD.

    A new approach to treating parent-child problems

There are more references available in the full text version of this article.

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An earlier version of this paper was presented at the Southeastern Psychological Association, New Orleans, April 1973. The authors thank Benjamin L. Moore for his careful critique of an earlier draft of this manuscript.

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Fred Glowgower is currently at Pearl Harbor Mental Health Clinic, Naval Regional Medical Clinic, Box 121, FPO San Francisco, California 96610.

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