Background: A key driver for early years strategies is the reduction of oppositional and defiant behaviour in childhood to prevent a negative life course of poor educational attainment and criminality. Despite a robust evidence base, manualised parent skills training programmes (PT) for externalising behaviour problems are only effective for approximately two-thirds of families. A limited number of variables that account for variance in outcome have been discovered. Finding further predictor, moderator and mediator variables will explain who benefits most, and how change occurs. This will ensure that families receive the most appropriate treatments for their profile of needs, and services deliver the available interventions in an efficient and effective way. Objectives: A systematic review of the literature was conducted to explore progress in this area since two key meta-analyses published in 2006. A primary study was carried out to examine whether parent attachment style, parenting self-efficacy and dysfunctional parental attributions predict, moderate or mediate the levels of externalising child behaviour problems reported by parents attending the Incredible Years PT. Methods: Studies exploring variables influencing outcome in child behaviour following attendance at a manualised, evidence-based PT group for parents of children and adolescents aged 0-18 years were sought. Psychinfo, Medline, ERIC and Embase databases were searched for articles published between August 2004 and March 2013 with keywords ‘parent’, ‘child’, ‘training’, ‘indirect effects’ and ‘oppositional behaviour’ or related terms. 2853 articles were retrieved, from which 12 studies fulfilled criteria. Study quality was appraised and co-rated. A pre-post, within subjects design was conducted with 79 parents attending the Incredible Years PT delivered in a Child and Adolescent Mental Health Service. Participants completed a battery of pre-treatment questionnaires measuring attachment style, attributions, self-efficacy and child behaviour. 52 parents completed the same battery post-treatment, and missing data was carried forward in an intent to treat analysis. Data was analysed using multiple regression techniques, and mediation and moderated mediation analyses. Results: The recent evidence base is populated by secondary analyses of intervention RCTs, and less robust non RCTs. The selection of maternal mood, parenting stress, parenting style and child demographics dominate, and the exploration of unique variables is limited. Significant findings are mixed and add no new variables to our understanding. Significant changes in parenting self-efficacy and dysfunctional attributions were found post-treatment, and attachment style remained stable. A main treatment effect size of d=.3 was estimated, and a significant number of children fell below sub-clinical levels of problem behaviour (n=13, 15.7%). Baseline child-responsible attributions and self-efficacy accounted for up to 40% of the variance in baseline child behaviour. Attachment style did not contribute significantly to the model, but moderated parent-causal attributions. Post-treatment, attachment avoidance had a moderating effect on self-efficacy and child-responsible attributions, and a significant direct effect on outcome. The indirect effect of parental-attributions on child behaviour through self-efficacy was moderated by attachment avoidance which reduced the number of significant paths. Conclusions: The call for PT studies delivered with fidelity in real world settings has been recognised, and more sophisticated statistical models of mediation are being adopted. There remains an exhaustive list of novel potential variables that future research needs to select and explore in primary research designs. An evidence based PT is achieving statistically and clinically significant results for children referred for problem behaviour. Dysfunctional parent attributions and self-efficacy are predictors of both pre- and post-treatment levels of child behaviour, which could be screened for in the referral process. The evidence for a direct and indirect role of attachment style on parent training outcomes adds a new candidate variable to the literature that warrants further exploration.

Earlier identification of autism allows for interventions to begin during toddlerhood. Literature suggests that parents are an important part of very early intervention and specific goals have indicated that they are important to progress. The use of telemedicine may increase access to interventions. The purpose of the study was to evaluate a parent-toddler training program that targeted social-communication skills and incorporated a telemedicine component. Measures included parent teaching targets, child attending, vocal requesting, and coordinated joint attention and the parent's response to coordinated joint attention. Results indicate that parent teaching increased, child attending and vocalizations increased, child coordinated joint attention increased, and the parent's response to coordinated joint attention was primarily social in nature. Analysis of the home observations indicates that direct in home observations or teleconference observations neither under or overestimated behaviors. The results are discussed in the context of teaching and feedback delivery and selection of teaching targets.

Thirty-four parents were referred by their CPS caseworkers to participate in one of two ACT for Parenting workshops. These workshops followed a 12 hour treatment protocol based on an acceptance and commitment therapy philosophy of parenting. Briefly, an ACT philosophy of parenting maintains that effective parenting requires awareness and acceptance of thoughts and feelings as they occur in the context of the parent-child relationship. An ACT philosophy of parenting also relies heavily on the identification and commitment to parenting values. Participants were asked to track acceptance and valuing behavior on a daily basis for 25 days prior to the intervention and 25 days post-intervention, as well as to complete a package of self-report instruments designed to measure both ACT specific and general psychological processes, at three different points (pre-, post- and follow-up). Nineteen parents received the treatment, and of those, seventeen provided follow-up data 3-4 months post-intervention. Results indicate statistically significant changes in the expected directions for scores on the BASC-2 Externalizing Composite as well as on the Meta-Valuing Measure. A total of 10 parents also evidenced clinically significant change in the expected directions on a variety of outcome measures.

Clefts of the lip and palate are one of the most frequently occurring birth defects, affecting approximately 1 in 700 births in the United States. Early childhood special educators are often among the first professionals to provide intervention for children with cleft lip and palate. Early intervention for children with clefts often focuses on speech production skills; however, results of recent research suggest that early intervention in language skills including parent training is warranted. A model of early intervention that uses language intervention to facilitate vocabulary and speech sound development is described. This model has been successful in improving productive vocabulary use and speech sound repertoires and shows promising reduction in compensatory articulation errors. Developmentally appropriate application of the model includes provision of direct intervention to children and parent training to promote naturalistic intervention in everyday settings. Strategies for working collaboratively with speech-language pathologists and members of cleft palate and craniofacial multidisciplinary teams are also described. Finally, answers are provided to frequently occurring questions from parents about cleft palate.

This study investigated the value of participation in a Dreikurs Parent Training group and in a Combination Dreikurs and Parent Effectiveness Training group. The value of participation was measured in terms of three variables: (1) problem behaviors of the child as reported by the parents on a Checklist of Child Problem Behaviors; (2) problems of parents as reported by the parents, themselves, on a Checklist of Parent Problems; and (3) parental attitudes as measured by Hereford's Parent Attitude Survey. Parents, who volunteered to be included in parent training groups, were assigned to two treatment groups and one control group. All parents in the treatment groups were tested during the first week of group meetings and following the tenth and final group meeting. The control group was also pre and post tested but was given no training in the ten week interum period. The two checklists used were developed by the author to check for specific problem behaviors both in the child and in the parent, himself. Hereford's Parent Attitude Survey is a self-report measure of five parent attitudes: confidence, causation, acceptance, understanding and trust. Pre-and post-test data was analyzed using t-tests for matched samples to analyze the change within each group and one-way analyses of covariance to compare post-test scores were used as covariates in the analyses of covariance. Parents participating in Combination groups increased significantly toward having more trust in their child. Parents in Dreikurs groups increased significantly toward having more confidence in themselves as parents. Through analysis of results obtained on the Checklist of Child Problem Behaviors; it was discovered that parents in none of the groups changed significantly in total number of problems checked. Parents in all three groups decreased significantly in those problems originally checked on the pre-test. The two treatment groups became aware of a significant number of new problems during the treatment period. The control group did not. Parents in the Dreikurs Parent Groups checked significantly fewer total problems on the post-test administration of the Checklist of Parent Problems than they did on the pre-test. All groups decreased significantly on those problems originally checked on the pre-test. The two treatment groups became aware of a significant number of new problems not originally checked on the pre-test. The control group showed no such increase.

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Thesis advisor: Eric Dearing / Increasing evidence indicates that exposure to poverty in early childhood may undermine neural growth that is critical to developing executive functions (EF) and, in turn, emotional and behavioral regulation (Blair et al. 2011; Kim et al., 2013; Raver et al., 2013). There is, however, also increasing evidence indicating that high-quality Early Childhood Education (ECE) (a) buffers children from risks associated with early exposure to poverty and (b) supports healthy socio-emotional development (Bierman et al., 2008; Raver, 2002; Yoshikawa et al., 2013). One line of this intervention work has focused on two-generation programs that pair high-quality ECE with supports for parents that are designed to improve parenting and the home environment. Although evidence on two-generation programs is mixed (Grindal et al., 2016; Neville et al., 2013), it is clear that much of the risk of poverty is relayed to children through their homes, and parenting is among the most critical influences on child emotional and behavioral self-regulation in infancy and early childhood (Bradley & Corwyn, 2004; Calkins & Johnson, 1998; Calkins et al., 1998). The present study builds on existing theoretical and empirical prior work indicating that children’s EF skills are important precursors to emotional and behavioral regulation that may be best promoted when addressed in both classroom and home contexts. Specifically, the present study uses a randomized design to evaluate the effects of classroom-based activities that target children’s executive functioning and the value added by training parents to better support their children’s EFs. Children were evaluated pre- and post-intervention on EF skills and prosocial and adaptive problem-solving behavior. In general, few significant effects of either the child training or the added parent component were evident. These findings are discussed with special attention to the fact that fidelity of implementation of the classroom and parent trainings was low, with less than half of teachers incorporating games at least once a week and only 13 percent of parents attending the trainings. In addition, implications for future empirical work as well as policy and practice are discussed with special attention given to further inquiry into the malleability of EF. / Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2017. / Submitted to: Boston College. Lynch School of Education. / Discipline: Counseling, Developmental and Educational Psychology.

Parents of children with severe/moderate disabilities experience uncertainty and a lack of knowledge as their children go through the transition to adulthood. Research has shown parents play a key role in their child's postschool outcome success and that parent training and beginning transition preparation early are key predictors. This study examined the effects of parent training on parents' knowledge, expectations, and action towards their child's transition to adulthood. Participants consisted of parents of middle school youth with severe/moderate disabilities. The study measured parent knowledge, expectations, and actions. Procedures involved (a) a pretest administered to parents on their transition knowledge, (b) a training session highlighting successful examples of similar individuals with disabilities in the transition process, information on transition services, and action goals that participants can begin working on now; and (c) a posttest on parent knowledge and expectations. The mean scores on parent expectations and knowledge increased from the pretest to posttest. Additionally, parents were given an assignment to be completed after the training session as a measure of their action to assist their child towards transition. The researcher contacted participants 2 weeks following training to determine if the assignment was completed. Seventy-one percent of participants indicated they worked on their assignment during the 2-week follow-up phone call. Based on these results, parent training in this study was associated with increased parent expectations, knowledge, and actions.

Children exhibiting conduct problems comprise the largest source of referrals to children's mental health services in this county. Significant research has been conducted in an attempt to identify specific risk factors that result in increased vulnerability of a child developing conduct problems. Knowledge of these factors increases our ability to identify young children who are at greater risk for developing conduct problems. The treatment for conduct problems that possesses the greatest amount of empirical support is behavioral parent training. Yet behavioral parent training fails to address behaviors and risk factors that are present during a child's early development. Preventative behavioral parent training is a very brief primary prevention strategy designed to prevent the development of chronic and age-inappropriate display of conduct problems. This project was an initial longitudinal assessment examining the merits of preventative behavioral parent training as a primary prevention strategy for young children at-risk of developing conduct problems. Results demonstrated that prevention participants were engaging in normative rates of noncompliance and tantruming at 6-month follow-up, whereas comparison children showed a general worsening in their disruptive behaviors over time.