Training parents of brain-injured children in the use of operant conditioning procedures

All parents who carried out the modification programs reported success in changing their children's behavior, and success and failure tended to relate to the parents' level of formal education and to their performance on written tests of knowledge of operant conditioning and of verbal ability.

Abstract

Parents of brain-injured children participated in a project to teach the uses of operant conditioning principles for functionally analyzing behavior and for designing and carrying out behavior modification programs for their own children. They were instructed in objectively observing and reporting their children's behavior and were told to keep daily records specifying the child's disturbing behaviors, their antecedent conditions (discriminative stimuli), and their consequences (reinforcements). All parents who carried out the modification programs reported success in changing their children's behavior. Others either failed to show good comprehension of what to do or did not attempt to carry out the programs. Some did not keep the required records. Success and failure tended to relate to the parents' level of formal education and to their performance on written tests of knowledge of operant conditioning and of verbal ability. These results were discussed in terms of various procedures for training parents. Problems of collecting adequate data on the parents' and children's behavior at home were considered. Briefer comments were made on techniques for studying parent-child interactions with respect to behaviors other than the disturbing target behaviors, and on the diagnosis of brain damage and its relationship to behavior modification.