The effects of instructions, feedback and cueing procedures in behavioural parent training

Abstract

Two studies were conducted to examine the effects of providing home-based training for parents of behaviourally disturbed children attending a behaviour modification workshop, on parent attending behaviour and deviant child behaviour. Experiment 1 compared the effects of an Instructions No Feedback condition with Instructions plus Feedback, using a multiple baseline design. Instructions No Feedback comprised verbal and written instructions, lecture presentations, and modelling of behavioural procedures, and Instructions plus Feedback com¬prised therapists visiting the homes to provide brief differential feedback on programme implementation. Instructions plus Feedback resulted in increased levels of attending to appropriate behaviour, decreased levels of attending to deviant behaviour, and reduced levels of deviant child behaviour, when compared to Baseline and Instructions No Feedback conditions. Experiment 2 examined the effects of a home-based therapist feedback procedure with and without cueing. During Cueing plus Feedback a therapist provided parents with a visual cue to either ignore, praise, deliver time-out or display physical affection. Feedback once again comprised brief differential verbal feedback following home observation sessions. Although the Cueing plus Feedback and Feedback Alone conditions increased parents' attention to appropriate behaviour, decreased attention to deviant behaviour and effectively modified deviant child behaviour when compared to Baseline, the two procedures did not differ clearly in their effects on either parent or child behaviour. Implications of the results for parent training research were discussed.