Alan S. W. Winton

Mindful parenting decreases aggression and increases social behavior in children with developmental disabilities

Research shows that after training in the philosophy and practice of mindfulness, parents can mindfully attend to the challenging behaviors of their children with autism. Parents also report an increased satisfaction with their parenting skills and social interactions with their children. These findings were replicated and extended with 4 parents of children who had developmental disabilities, exhibited aggressive behavior, and had limited social skills. After mindfulness training, the parents were able to decrease aggressive behavior and increase their childrens social skills. They also reported a greater practice of mindfulness, increased satisfaction with their parenting, more social interactions with their children, and lower parenting stress. Furthermore, the children showed increased positive and decreased negative social interactions with their siblings. We speculate that mindfulness produces transformational change in the parents that is reflected in enhanced positive behavioral transactions with their children.

Adolescents With Conduct Disorder Can Be Mindful of Their Aggressive Behavior

Adolescents with conduct disorder frequently engage in aggressive and disruptive behaviors. Often these behaviors are controlled or managed through behavioral or other psychosocial interventions. However, such interventions do not always ensure lasting changes in an adolescents response repertoire so that he or she does not engage in aggression when exposed to the same situations that gave rise to the behavior previously. Mindfulness training provides a treatment option that helps an individual focus and attend to conditions that give rise to maladaptive behavior.Using a multiple baseline design,we assessed the effectiveness of a mindfulness training procedure in modulating the aggressive behavior of three adolescents who were at risk of expulsion from school because of this behavior. The adolescents were able to learn the mindfulness procedure successfully and use it in situations that previously occasioned aggressive behavior.This led to large decreases in the aggression of all three individuals. Follow-up data showed that the adolescents were able to keep their aggressive behavior at socially acceptable levels in school through to graduation. Maladaptive behaviors, other than aggression, that the adolescents chose not to modify, showed no consistent change during mindfulness training, practice, and follow-up.

Recognition of Facial Expressions of Emotion by Children with Attention-Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder.

Fifty children and adolescents were tested for their ability to recognize the 6 basic facial expressions of emotion depicted in Ekman and Friesens normed photographs. Subjects were presented with sets of 6 photographs of faces, each portraying a different basic emotion, and stories portraying those emotions were read to them. After each story, the subject was asked to point to the photograph in the set that depicted the emotion described. Overall, the children correctly identified the emotions on 74% of the presentations. The highest level of accuracy in recognition was for happiness, followed by sadness, with fear being the emotional expression that was mistaken most often. When compared to studies of children in the general population, children with ADHD have deficits in their ability to accurately recognize facial expressions of emotion. These findings have important implications for the remediation of social skill deficits commonly seen in children with ADHD.

Clinical and Benefit–Cost Outcomes of Teaching a Mindfulness-Based Procedure to Adult Offenders With Intellectual Disabilities

The effects of a mindfulness-based procedure, called Meditation on the Soles of the Feet, were evaluated as a cognitive-behavioral intervention for physical aggression in 6 offenders with mild intellectual disabilities. They were taught a simple meditation technique that required them to shift their attention and awareness from the precursors of aggression to the soles of their feet, a neutral point on their body. Results showed that physical and verbal aggression decreased substantially, no Stat medication or physical restraint was required, and there were no staff or peer injuries. Benefit—cost analysis of lost days of work and cost of medical and rehabilitation because of injury caused by these individuals in both the 12 months prior to and following mindfulness-based training showed a 95.7% reduction in costs. This study suggests that this procedure may be a clinically effective and cost-effective method of enabling adult offenders with intellectual disabilities to control their aggression.

Individuals with mental illness can control their aggressive behavior through mindfulness training

Verbal and physical aggression are risk factors for community placement of individuals with serious and persistent mental illness. Depending on the motivations involved, treatment typically consists of psychotropic medications and psychosocial interventions, including contingency management procedures and anger management training. Effects of a mindfulness procedure, Meditation on the Soles of the Feet , were tested as a cognitive behavioral intervention for verbal and physical aggression in 3 individuals who had frequently been readmitted to an inpatient psychiatric hospital owing to their anger management problems. In a multiple baseline across subjects design, they were taught a simple meditation technique, requiring them to shift their attention and awareness from the anger-producing situation to the soles of their feet, a neutral point on their body. Their verbal and physical aggression decreased with mindfulness training; no physical aggression and very low rates of verbal aggression occurred during 4 years of follow-up in the community.

A mindfulness-based health wellness program for an adolescent with Prader-Willi syndrome.

Individuals with Prader-Willi syndrome have hyperphagia, a characteristic eating disorder defined by a marked delay in the satiety response when compared to controls. This eating disorder has been particularly difficult to control. The authors taught and evaluated effectiveness of regular exercise alone, regular exercise plus healthy eating, and mindfulness-based strategies combined with exercise and healthy eating to an adolescent with this syndrome. Mindfulness-based strategies included mindful eating, visualizing and labeling hunger, and rapidly shifting attention away from hunger by engaging in Meditation on the Soles of the Feet. On average, when compared to baseline levels, there were decreases in weight with regular exercise and exercise plus healthy eating, but the most consistent and sustained changes were evidenced when mindfulness training was added to exercise and healthy eating. The adolescent continued using the mindfulness health wellness program and further reduced his weight during the 3-year follow-up period.

Mindfulness Approaches in Cognitive Behavior Therapy

Mindfulness is the latest addition to the armamentarium of cognitive behavioral therapists. Mindfulness methods from the wisdom traditions, as well as from current psychological theories, are beginning to be used as cognitive behavioral strategies for alleviating psychological distress and for personal transformation. The use of mindfulness as a clinical tool is in its infancy, with attendant growing pains in theory, research and practice. We briefly discuss the historical context of the use of mindfulness, recent developments in theory, research and practice, and future developments. We conclude that mindfulness shows a lot of promise as a clinical treatment modality, but there are inherent pitfalls in the developing approaches.

Mindfulness Training for Teachers Changes the Behavior of their Preschool Students

We measured the effects of preschool teachers attending an 8-week mindfulness course on the behavior of the students in their classroom. Results showed that decreases in the students’ challenging behaviors and increases in their compliance with teacher requests began during mindfulness training for the teachers and continued to change following the training. While the students did not show a change in positive social interactions with peers, they did show a decrease in negative social interactions and an increase in isolate play. Our results indicate that mindfulness training for teachers was effective in changing teacher-student interactions in desirable ways.

A Mindfulness-Based Treatment of Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder:

Of those who suffer from obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), a substantial number do not respond well to the standard treatment of two trials of serotonin reuptake inhibitors and cognitive-behavioral therapy. In addition to being refractory to current treatments, these individuals often have comorbid disorders that contribute to a compromised quality of life. The authors present the case of such an individual who was assisted to improve her quality of life by accepting her OCD as a strength and enhancing her mindfulness so that she was able to incorporate her OCD in her daily life. Results showed that she successfully overcame her debilitating OCD and was taken off all medication within 6 months of intervention. Three years of postintervention follow-up showed that she was well adjusted, had a full and healthy lifestyle and that although some obsessive thoughts remained, they did not control her behavior.

Assessing the Readability of Mental Health Internet Brochures for Children and Adolescents

We investigated the readability of seven mental health brochures on mental, emotional, and behavioral disorders in children that were selected from a website developed by the Center for Mental Health Services at http://www.mentalhealth.org. The reading grade levels of the brochures ranged from 11.1 to 14.8 (mean 13.23), considerably higher than the 8th grade level recommended for educational material by the U. S. Department of Education (1986). On other readability variables, assessed using the Readability Assessment Instrument (RAIN; Singh, 1994), all brochures met criterion on most variables but failed on those for new words (audience appropriateness) and print size. This is a favorable result in comparison with other studies that have assessed readability of mental health information on the Internet using the RAIN, although less so with reading grade levels.