Robert G. Wahler

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.

Attentional problems in dysfunctional mother-child interactions: An interbehavioral model.

A review of the literature on dysfunctional mother-child interactions indicates a consistent association between dysfunction and environmental stressors. The association does not always seem due to an absence of parenting skills but more so due to a stress-induced deficiency in maternal attention. Some mothers, who also live in the midst of stressors, are not in synchrony with cues offered through their childrens various behaviors. The literature suggests that the stress-induced attention problem is mediated by organizational properties of a mothers response repertoire. These properties, conceptualized by the term response class, refer to covariations among the various behaviors composing the mothers repertoire. According to this interbehavioral model, mothers who manifest high response class intercorrelations will also be most susceptible to the attention-debilitating influences of stress. The heuristic value of this model is outlined in a section on clinical strategies geared to changing a mothers attention. Clinical teaching procedures described as analysis and synthesis are presented.

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.

Soles of the Feet: A Mindfulness-Based Self-Control Intervention for Aggression by an Individual with Mild Mental Retardation and Mental Illness.

Uncontrolled low frequency, high intensity aggressive behavior is often a barrier to community living for individuals with developmental disabilities. Aggressive behaviors are typically treated with psychotropic medication, behavioral interventions or their combination; but often the behaviors persist at a level that is problematic for the individual as well as care providers. We developed a mindfulness-based, self-control strategy for an adult with mental retardation and mental illness whose aggression had precluded successful community placement. He was taught a simple meditation technique that required him to shift his attention and awareness from the anger-producing situation to a neutral point on his body, the soles of his feet. After practice he applied this technique fairly consistently in situations that would normally have elicited an aggressive response from him. The data show that he increased self-control over his aggressive behaviors, met the community providers requirement for 6 months of aggression-free behavior in the inpatient facility before being transitioned to the community, and then successfully lived in the community without readmission to a facility. No aggressive behavior was seen during the 1-year follow-up after his community placement. Mindfulness-based intervention may offer a viable alternative to traditional interventions currently being used to treat behavioral challenges in children and adults with mild mental retardation.

Indiscriminate mothering as a contextual factor in aggressive-oppositional child behavior: “Damned if you do and damned if you don’t”

Fifty-two mother-child dyads took part in a parent training program to modify coercive, antisocial child behavior. Prior to intervention, scores on 14 measures of mother-child interaction and on an index of maternal community contacts (known as “insularity”) were obtained for each dyad. This index was used to divide the sample into two groups (noninsular n = 21; insular n = 31). The interactional measures were then compared between the groups. Insular mothers were more aversive and indiscriminate than noninsular mothers in their use of aversive behavior toward their children, while their children were more aversive than noninsular children, especially in response to aversive maternal behavior. It was concluded that research and therapeutic work with deviant families should focus not only on immediate family interactions but also on the extra family environment in which these interactions take place.

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.

Setting events in social networks: Ally or enemy in child behavior therapy?

This paper addresses some current procedural and conceptual problems in child behavior therapy. Recent studies indicate that the production and maintenance of improvements to child behavior problems are not always guaranteed by dealing with the immediate environmental contingencies of these behaviors. In some cases, environmental events temporally distant from the child behaviors and their stimulus contingencies appear to exert control over these stimulus-response interations. These environmental events, called “setting events,” are discussed and principles of their operation are examined. Finally, a possible means of reducing setting event control is outlined.

Attentional processes in insular and noninsular mothers: Some differences in their summary reports about child problem behaviors.

Fifteen mother-child dyads were given psychological help for coercive problems in their day-to-day interactions. Seven of these mothers were self-referred, middle income parents whose daily community contacts classed them as noninsular. The remaining eight mothers, classed as insular, were referred by other agencies and were low income parents with quite different patterns of community contact. These patterns reflected infrequent and aversive interchanges, primarily with kinfolk and helping agency representatives. The helping procedures encompassed parent training along the lines specified by social learning theory. In addition, all mothers attended weekly therapy sessions in which they were encouraged to describe their problem interchanges with their children. Parent training effectiveness was assessed through direct observations of mother-child interactions in the home settings. Mother descriptions during the therapy sessions were videotaped and assessed by observers. Results showed that the noninsular ...

Child-child interactions in free field settings: Some experimental analyses☆

Abstract This study was concerned with investigating peer group variables which may control the social behavior of children in free play settings. Five preschool children and their peers served as subjects. Methodologically the experimental procedure followed an intrasubject replication design which involved repeated manipulation of the same experimental variables to insure reliability. The results demonstrate that the proschool childs behavior in free field settings may be subject to the reinforcement control of his peers. In four of five subjects studied, the data show that peer social attention can act as a set of positive reinforeers and control the social behavior of other children.

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.