The Effects of Parent Training Program on the Question-Asking Behavior of Mexican-American Children

Mothers of Mexican-American first-graders were divided into four groups according to the Solomon design. Experimental mothers were trained to use modeling, cueing, and reinforcement to influence their first-graders’ question-asking; control mothers were not. The effects of treatment on the child’s baseline question-asking level and ability to learn from examiner instruction were examined by administering a measure to the children, pre- and post-parent training. Their question-asking was assessed during three conditions: baseline, examiner instruction on question-asking, and generalization. Post-treatment assessment revealed that the question-asking of both experimental and control Ss increased significantly in response to instruction provided by an examiner who modeled questionasking behavior. Experimental Ss asked significantly more questions than control Ss across all three post-treatment measurement conditions (baseline, instruction, and generalization).