Parent Training Techniques

Overview

• Parent training is a necessary part of treating childhood problems.
• Child behavior is a source of control for parent behavior, which impacts outcomes of training
• The evidence for child behavior includes controlling antecedents and consequences for parent behavior
• Implications for parent training and future research are highlighted

Parental Implementation

• Treatment of childhood behavior problems require parents to implement behavior change procedures.
• Parental nonadherence is a barrier to achieving behavior change, and training may not guarantee successful outcomes
• In one instance 60% of parents who were in a time-out and point reward system failed to achieve successful outcomes
• Typical training teaches parents to implement behavioral interventions, but often why training fails is unknown
• Family demographics, intensity of child problem behavior, and life stress can predict treatment outcomes.
• Socioeconomic status and single-mother status correlate to poorer outcomes
• Focus is often given to parent behavior as reinforcement, but it should to be sensitive reinforcing consequences too
• When nonadherence occurs, consider the contingencies that contribute to it

Child Effects in Parenting

• Child behavior influences parent behavior, aligning with traditional developmental literature's known "child effects"
• Parent interactions through the lens of behavior analysis shows the parent's behavior comes from learning history and environmental factors through the child
• Parent behavior is followed by the start or end of the child's behavior, which reinforces the parent behavior
• The child's behavior will signal a reinforcer or a more valued item that makes the parent behavior more likely

Tantrums

• When tantrums are maintained by attention it might be recommend that parents ignore the tantrums through extinction
• Parents might fail to adhere because attention led to the tantrum ending
• The child's problem behavior might signal its removal as reinforcing and causes parent responses based on past outcomes
• It is important to research the variables that control parent behavior, but thisacknowledged this is difficult

Research Needed

• It is important to research both the undesirable and desirable parent-child interactions that strengthen or weaken parent behavior
• A goal is to build on research of child influence, discussing the implications for training, and providing research recommendations
• Studies are needed on parent + teacher behavior from traditional/behavior-analytic child development approaches
• Studies should look at how parent behavior is influenced by antecedent and consequent child behavior

Describing Child Effects

• Understanding behavior is achieved through describing, predicting, and controlling behavioral phenomena
• Literature gives descriptions of parent-child interactions and correlational analyses showing potential causal links
• Behavior analysis contributes by experimenting to uncover how these events relate

Child-Controlled Negative Reinforcement

• The negative reinforcement that a child can provide for parent behavior that he referred to as the negative reinforcement trap is an integral concept
• Patterson suggested that child behavior offers negative reinforcement for parent responses from when babies are small
• It becomes importnat in making problem behavior bad or parents harsh because of it

Child Behavior

• Adults might avoid presenting learning opportunities or leisure items because the child's behavior punishes them
• Differences in participant presentation of demands and leisure items corresponds to levels of problem behavior
• Children comply more with demands, but the ones who dont get less demands
• Students with autism had teachers do separate sessions
• Child engaged with a wide rang of leisure items and often showed problem behavior when doing other things
• Adults do the same and remove leisure items corresponding with problem behavior
• Rather than avoiding these parents reward attention or preferred items following problem behavior that leads to avoidance

Other Notes on Child-Related Negative Reinforcement

• Verbal reprimands are a very common form of attention that follows bad child behavior, and it could reinforce behavior
• Higher reprimands and problem behavior correlated, followed by decreases
• Miller, Lerman, and Fritz (2010) show that negative reinforcement contingency follows problem behavior when participants are instructed to give reprimands to a child actor
• Research has shown that caregiving responses towards infants follows infant crying, which is reinforced with cessation of crying
• Thompson (2011) shows researchers manipulating recorded infant crying and measure caregiving responses
• Reinforcement for caregiving response happen only researchers arrange escape from crying in response
• Researchers show resurgence of caregiving during extinction and show its influenced by reinforcement history
• Negative reinforcement is partly responsible in how parents respond to infant crying.

Additional Research Recommendations

• Descriptive and experimental methods of investigation should value child problem behavior and reprimands
• Because descriptive studies look at adult-child interactions under the usual conditons it gives plausibility that the results map over to parent-child interactions
• Behavior analysts should reference other developmental literature to inform future experiments.
• Dependent behavior by the child can cause dependecy by the parent and vise versa
• Contingency lens says completing the task for the child and the cessation of request is negatively reinforcing for both sides (undesireable)
• The child will then ask for assistance more
• Behavior analysts should consider that desirable interactions occur through reinforcement when the infant cries and they are taken care of
• It becomes inappropriate later on when the child can ask for assistnace

Abusive Reinforcement

• Undesireable parent behavior with infants can easily be the same
• Parents can engage aggressively by shaking to stop crying
• Together, they suggest a history of negative reinforcement that could be involved with child abuse
• Abusive behavior like shaking might emerge as product of parents encountering periods of difficult crying that produce spikes in magnitude/rate of preivously relieved caregiving responses like rocking
• Research could employ simulated intervention to know how infant crying will influence abuse
• It is most important to emphasis that they are not blaming kids; abuse is a very important topic that needs assistance and treatment
• Investigating more contingencies about reinforcement from child behavior could open research avenues and processes responsible.

Positive Reinforcement

• Skinner states punishment is the cause of reinforcement by an immediate cessation
• Research could look into variables about punishement by arranging immediate ending of problem behavior and seeing any spread.

Positivity/Correct Responses

• Wahler (1976) said positive reinforcement can contribute to bad parent-child interactions
• Child attention like cuddling can cause a dishonest report of illness to get out of something like school
• Researches want to investigate positive reinforcement contingencies using social and correct responses
• If adults praise more and tangibles they get correct responses in a simulated instructional context
• Tasks were marbles teaching children to put marbles in 1/4 tubes in the wall
• Child manipulation would be following a specific type of delivery consequence
• People said/buzzed; if correct stayed, if no switched
• Expirementers report participants learned to deliver consequences that had correct resuls

Drawbacks

• Lacking both data report that looks good and graphic depiction relation and child response.
• Correct responses from children can enable more intense punishment.
• Participants learn to assemble puzzel through another person and bowls for the bad answers are also tracked digitally and then the numbers. Experiments could be independent of punishment intensity

Positive Child Qualities

• Traditional developmental helps child correct responsese as positive
• Child imitation showed changes in behavior
• Child positivity is similar to above and indicative of good reinforcments
• Eye contact and answering is key to better adult suggestions
• In scenarios with building, people were more likely to be more conversational of eye contact with people and building
• They cant demnoastrate behavior differences
• Kids who respond to names seem to comply while asking which may bring contact and smiling

Potential Work

• Research that shows child responses may reinforce, but more effort must be placed. Positivity may change things when talking about negatives (like saying "sorry").

Manipulation/Confederate

• Show child by confederate for direct manipulation and see changes
• It can be difficult to control other behaviors
• Confederates bring potential but cant be alone
• Researchers manipulated video clips
• Activity levls and repsonses to them
• Reprimanding

Importance Of the Full Picture

• Need to look at complete contigency, consequence manip
• Simply measuring potential evocative without consequence will not work; not accurate what would do
• Looked also at child proxies that showed in the studies
• People get confused (child and adults)

Parent Training Goals

• The goals of studying child behavior are to help with parent training
• Contingency analysis should further benefit training
• Parent skills of what to teach kids for the problems that arise

Potential actions

• FCT for the parents and their children
• A way described by miller would be useful that would see the behavior senstivity and negative reinforcement because cessation
• Teach parents for commiunication that doesnt have bad behavior though
• Teach children who may not know to be nice
• Parent training could have child reinforce new behavior or skills to use

General Note

• The children should be the ones to ask "thank you" for appropriate child behavior
• Help kids and adult do that effectively and learn by reinforcing behavior that leads in it
• Stop parent actions without being abusive
• Give parents time
• Be social and appreciate and design practices for good times in order to see what works
• Design parents and test what works
• They need to abuse for their actions or work to overcome

Contigencies

• Instructions with parent performing
• Reinforcements from children

Teaching the Parents

• Parents can be the source of child behavior even with knowledge
• Basic analysis and child analysis shows that child performance can cause child behavior
• There needs to be better conditions of instrcuions and how they help
• Can help in more and better results to try
• People have to try harder to give child the help they need to help all

Outcomes

• You can reduce reminders or more you can get more from interactions
• Can work in other sides of life and the behavior if they alter what works
• People do that naturally, but must find out why
• Help the relationships and how parent care by trying to make them well as that is most needed
• If that is not a point show what needs be by the history of behavior the children bring

Summary

• Show evidence of the ways a child may teach
• Child and what they had
• Analuysts need to give escape
• To achive some have need to get more done
• Better that get done than not or less it makes it easy
• What work can give or when does each action come from the type of help that they do
• Need more or the how with this