Behavioral Consultation with Parents and Teachers: Delivering Treatment for Socially Withdrawn Children at Home and School

Abstract

The present study tested empirically the effectiveness of conjoint behavioral consultation as a process for delivering a behavioral intervention for withdrawn children. Specifically, a multiple baseline design was used to evaluate teacheronly and conjoint behavioral consultation in their ability to produce cross-setting behavioral change in the social initiations of four withdrawn children. For two subjects, conjoint behavioral consultation services were provided to parent-teacher pairs. For two other subjects, teacher-only behavioral consultation services were provided. Direct observation, rating scale, and self-report data were collected from various sources across settings. Conjoint behavioral consultation was found to be an effective method of service-delivery to enhance social initiation behaviors of withdrawn children across home and school settings, whereas teacher-only consultation was an effective method of service-delivery in enhancing social initiation behaviors at school only. Likewise, temporal and cross-setting generalization of social initiation behaviors were apparent only in the conjoint behavioral consultation condition. It is suggested that conjoint behavioral consultation provides a useful framework for working within and between family and school systems. Future research directions include replication with diverse subject populations, evaluation of alternative parent roles, and assessment of consumer satisfaction.