Skills for Child Management and Family Support

This study evaluated the effects of a training program designed to teach one couple skills for better managing its child's behavior and for increasing occurrence of positive, reciprocal family interactions. Specifically, parents were taught to: (1) improve instructions to the child; (2) differentially attend to their child's behavior; and (3) improve support of one another by increasing interspouse consistency when responding to the child. A multiple baseline design across parent behaviors was employed. Training was conducted and data were collected in the home via direct observation of the family's behavior. Results suggest that compliant child behavior increased substantially when the parents were trained to differentially attend to their child. Introduction of spouse support and family interaction training yielded immediate increases in family interactions, interspouse consistency, and the occurence of positive statements among family members.