Mark W. Roberts

Adjusting chair timeout enforcement procedures for oppositional children

Mothers of noncompliant, clinic-referred preschool children were randomly assigned to 1 of 4 chair timeout (TO) enforcement procedures: Spank, Hold, Barrier, or Child Release. Standardized Forehand compliance training was implemented. Hold procedures were associated with less compliance criterion performance and excessive TO escape efforts. Child Release procedures were associated with excessive TOs. Neither Hold nor Child Release procedures are recommended. Barrier and Spank procedures appeared equally effective, replicating prior studies. The importance of monitoring and adjusting initial clinic TO enforcement procedures was documented. Noncompliant children who resisted TO displayed significantly less improvement in compliance than noncompliant children who accepted TO. Group data were obtained in the home setting across a four-week period. Most children displayed near-zero levels of TO resistance within 3 weeks in the home.

The effect of time-out release contingencies on changes in child noncompliance.

This project evaluated the effect of time-out release contingencies on changes in child noncompliance to maternal instructions. Twenty-four clinic-referred, noncompliant, preschool children served as subjects. Each child was assessed under baseline conditions and then under one of three experimental conditions: Parent Release, Child Release, or Control. Children in the Parent Release and Child Release conditions experienced time-out contingent upon noncompliance. Temporal and behavioral time-out release contingencies were present in the Parent Release condition but not in the Child Release condition. A spanking procedure was used to inhibit premature escape from time-out for children in the Parent Release group. The results indicated that both time-out groups demonstrated increased compliance ratios. However, improvement associated with the Child Release condition was considered to be clinically insignificant.

An analysis of the physical punishment component of a parent training program

One component of a well-researched, standardized parent training program is to spank children for escape from time-out. The contribution of the spanking component to compliance acquisition in a clinic analog setting was evaluated. Time-out duration and child disruption at time-out release were balanced across spank and no-spank (“barrier”) conditions. Sixteen noncompliant, clinic-referred preschool children participated. The data indicated that both spank and barrier procedures were equally effective at increasing compliance ratios. Physical punishment did not appear to be a critical component. Given prior research, it was concluded that the enforcement of a minimum time-out duration is critical for compliance acquisition within the analog setting.

The effects of differential attention and time out on child noncompliance

This project evaluated the effects of differential attention and time out on child noncompliance in 32 noncompliant, clinic-referred, preschool children. Subjects were assessed under baseline conditions and then under one of four experimental conditions: attention, time out, attention plus time out, or control. The results indicated that only the time out contributed to compliance acquistion.

Enforcing Chair Timeouts with Room Timeouts

Eighteen defiant preschool children were taught to obey maternal chorelike instructions in a clinic analog. Standard Forehand compliance-training procedures (i.e., precise instruction giving, praise, warnings, and chair timeouts) were used. Subjects were assigned to one of two chair-timeout enforcement procedures: spanking (SP) or room timeout (RTO). Children in the SP condition were spanked for refusal to remain on the timeout chair; RTO subjects spent one minute in a barrier-enforced timeout room following escape from the timeout chair. Following SP or RTO enforcement procedures, children were replaced on the timeout chair. Both procedures successfully inhibited escape efforts from the timeout chair. Both procedures were associated with compliance acquisition. Less timeout disruption was associated with the RTO procedure. Behavioral, ethical, practical, and safety issues appear to favor the enforcement of chair timeouts with room timeouts over both traditional room timeouts and chair timeouts enforced by physical punishment.

Praising child compliance: Reinforcement or ritual?

Praising child compliance is a common therapeutic recommendation to parents with noncompliant children. There are currently no studies documenting the independent contribution of the praise component to successful parent training programs. Three projects were designed to evaluate the hypotheses underlying the use of contingent praise routines. Namely, it has been suggested that conduct-disordered children are relatively unresponsive to adult approval at pretreatment, yet become responsive by posttreatment. In contrast to the hypotheses, data indicated that child compliance levels were not associated with child responsivity to maternal social reinforces; noncompliant children were responsive to maternal praise both before and after treatment; child responsivity to maternal praise did not covary with successful treatment; previously noncompliant but successfully treated children continued to comply to maternal instructions after contingent praise was withdrawn; a nonclinic child demonstrated extensive compliance persistence in the absence of contingent praise. Praising child compliance appeared to be more of a polite ritual than an active therapeutic component for altering noncompliance.

Alternative treatments for sibling aggression

Eighteen clinic-referred, aggressive pairs of siblings and their mothers participated in one of three brief clinical interventions. Participant observation of aggressive episodes in the home setting served as the treatment outcome measurement. All sibling pairs participated in four clinic treatment sessions consisting of one of three treatments: Social Skills (SS), Timeout (TO), or Combination (COMBO). Training procedures consisted of observation of videotaped child models reacting to typical conflict situations, verbal rehearsals, role-playing, and parent training. Between treatment sessions, all mothers recorded aggressive episodes in the home and consequated such behavior with either discussion, timeout, or a combination of these events. The data indicated that timeout training was more effective than social skill training. Social skill training may also have been useful, however, especially for children from higher socioeconomic status homes. It was concluded that initial treatments for sibling aggression should include a discipline component.

An attempt to reduce time out resistance in young children

Clinic-referred, noncompliant preschool children were trained to comply with maternal instructions in a clinic analog using a standardized set of contingencies (praise, warnings, and chair time outs). Ten subjects intensely reviewed time out contingencies prior to actual training (pretraining condition); ten did not. Data replicated prior results within the analog in terms of time outs to compliance criterion performance. The pretraining procedure, however, did not attenuate resistance to time out. Alternative explanations are discussed.

Maternal response to child compliance and noncompliance: Some normative data

Abstract The purpose of this study was to examine materal consequences to child compliance and noncompliance. Thirty‐two nonclinic mother‐child pairs served as subjects. Each mother issued 16 standard commands to her child in a laboratory setting. The results indicated that the children complied to 51% of the commands and noncomplied to 14% of the commands, whereas mothers prevented child compliance 35% of the time by not allowing the child sufficient time to comply. Mothers followed compliance with contingent positive attention 30% of the time and ignored compliance 27% of the time. Maternal interruptions and responses to noncompliance typically took the same form: repetition of the command.

The assessment of maladaptive parent-child interaction by direct observation: An analysis of methods

Six direct observation technologies for assessing parent-child interactions are examined: Descriptive-narrative, event recording, three types of interval sampling, and sequential event recording. Selected articles in the clinical literature are reviewed to illustrate use of each technology. Furthermore, the yield of each procedure in terms of four assessment criteria was evaluated: precise description of the parent-child interaction, target selection, identification of the intervention strategy, and evaluation of the intervention technique. The sequentialevent-recording technology was determined to be most advantageous in terms of the four criteria.