Skill change among Latinx families in a behavioral parenting intervention: The interactive effect of caregiver language preference and acculturation.

In the United States, externalizing behavior problems are among the most common mental health disorders in youth, with Latinx children showing similar prevalence rates compared with their non-Latinx White counterparts (Merikangas et al., 2010).Importantly, rates of externalizing behavior problems in Latinx youth are higher among more acculturated families, where U.S.-born children of immigrants have more mental health needs than foreign-born children (Marks et al., 2014).Fortunately, among many behavioral parenting interventions (BPIs) available, Parent-Child Interaction Therapy (PCIT) emerges as a promising treatment for Latinx youth with externalizing disorders (Lieneman et al., 2017;Thomas et al., 2017;Valero-Aguayo et al., 2021) PCIT is designed to enhance the caregiver-child relationship to improve child behavior problems.This intervention is divided into two distinct phases: 1) Child-Directed Interaction (CDI) and 2) Parent-Directed Interaction (PDI).During CDI, caregivers learn to follow their child's lead during play.Specifically, they learn to use do skills (i.e., labeled praises, reflections, descriptions) in play to reinforce appropriate child behaviors and teach concepts and language.Caregivers also learn to avoid don't skills (i.e., questions, commands, critical statements), which take the lead away from the child during the play, and to actively ignore inappropriate and attention-seeking behaviors or end the play if the child displays aggressive or destructive behaviors.To achieve CDI skill criteria, a caregiver must use 10 labeled praises, 10 reflections, and 10 behavioral descriptions, as well as 3 or fewer questions, commands, or critical statements during a 5-minute play situation.Achieving CDI skill criteria is especially important because the use of these skills by caregivers is associated with increases in responsive caregiving practices (Blizzard et al., 2018), caregiver emotion socialization (Lorenzo & Bagner, 2022), and caregiving that promotes child language development (Garcia et al., 2019).However, Latinx caregivers may have difficulties achieving CDI skill criteria, as they may perceive these skills as less culturally