Herbert C. Wimberger

An Approach to Defining Mother-Child Interaction Styles

The study describes the development of a method for coding and recording the objective non-verbal interactions which take place between preschool-aged children and their mothers. Trained observers speak the codes into one channel of a stereophonic tape recorder while the verbal interactions are simultaneously being recorded on the other channel. Illustrative data from two culturally advantaged and two culturally disadvantaged subject pairs were analyzed in terms of the avenues by which they communicated to demonstrate that the quantitative measures have sufficient consistency on two comparable occasions to warrant applying detailed pattern and sequence analysis techniques.

Behavior Transactions Between Disturbed Children and Their Mothers.

10 children between 4 and 6 yr. of age, coming from families who had sought help from the University of Washington Child Psychiatry Clinic, were observed in the laboratory in interaction with their mothers. Interactive patterns were analyzed, utilizing observational methods and rating procedures developed in other research. Ss each tended to exhibit some unique and deviant occurrences of certain classes of behaviors, but the only respect in which they systematically differed as a group from the comparison sample of non-clinic mother-child pairs was in the more frequent occurrence of strongly controlling behaviors on the part of the mothers. This control characteristically occurred in the context of some degree of high status on the part of the child, whereas in the comparison Ss the child tended to be displaying neutral status when his mother was being strongly controlling. Comparison mothers tended to exercise their control by directing their children what to do; clinic mothers tended to exercise their control by non-acceptance of what their children had already done. Two illustrative cases summarized the application of sequence analysis methods to understanding the unique interaction styles of individual pairs.

The diagnostic consultation and rural community mental health programs

A diagnostic consultation service employing traditional methods is described. The assets and limitations of this method are studied through a follow-up of 27 consecutive evaluations of children with behavior problems. The relevance to community mental health strategies in rural areas is discussed.

Conceptual system for classification ofpsychogenic school underachievement

The classification presented does not in any way attempt to elucidate the causes for school underachievement but is rather designed to help the educator, the therapist, or any other person dealing with the underachieving child to conceptualize the childs problems. The system is mainly empirical and originates from clinical practice involving diagnosis and psychotherapy of the underachieving child. It has proved to be helpful in the classification of children showing this symptom and in the planning of therapeutic approaches. Little is mentioned in this paper about specific therapeutic recommendations in relationship to the quoted categories. However, any rational therapeutic approach stems from an understanding of the etiologic factors involved and is usually a logical consequence of this understanding.