Training Parents in Positive

Parenting Skills and

Direct Behavior Ratings

Sayward Harrison, MA/CAS

 SCHOOL-BASED HEALTH CLINIC
Direct Services to the Child
(Counseling, Therapy, Behavioral Supports)

Healthy Child

SCHOOL SYSTEM COMMUNITY

School Personnel Awareness Parent Awareness
& Training & Training
 Parents trained to alter child’s behavior at
home
 Based on behavioral & social learning
principles (Skinner, Bandura)
 Addresses multiple domains:
 e.g., child compliance, tantrums, enuresis,
eating disorders, hyperactivity, medical
adherence
 Targets multiple populations:
 e.g., preschoolers to adolescents, children with
autism, MR, LD, ADHD
 Tend to focus on children ages 3-10 (Kazdin, 1997)
 Seldom have addressed ethnic and cultural issues
(Forehand & Kotchick, 1996)
 Have neglected parents of adolescents

  BUT…the teenage years are critical

 An Evidence-Based Method for Parent Training

 Compared to control groups, parent trainings

which used VTM can produce significant behavioral
change, including:
 Reduced child behavior problems
 More prosocial behavior
 Fewer incidents of spanking
 Decreased parental stress
 More positive parent-child interactions
 Initially conceptualized as parent training
group
 BUT…multiple community barriers!

 Now  Individual sessions with parents to

train in behavioral management techniques
and positive parenting skills
 Videotape modeling, didactic presentation,
coaching, practice & feedback, training in DBR…
 Possible topics…
 Getting to Know and Connecting with your
Teenager
 Communicating Positively and Effectively
 Encouraging and Listening to your Child
 Establishing Rules and Boundaries
 Teaching Teenagers Responsibility
 Positive Discipline Strategies
 Dealing with Conflict
 Solving Problems Together
 Pre- & Post-measures to assess changes in
discipline strategies, perceived problems,
communication, etc.
 Direct Behavior Ratings (DBRs) to monitor &

communicate, as well as intervention component

 What is a DBR?

 • DBR is a tool that involves brief rating of

child’s behavior following a specified period of
time (e.g., 45-minutes of math group work)

 • DBR offers a defensible, flexible, repeatable,

and efficient way to gather information about a
child’s behavior

http://www.directbehaviorrating.com
4 steps:
1. Specifying a target behavior
2. Rating the behavior following a specified
observation period
3. Sharing the obtained information across
individuals (e.g., parents, teachers, students)
4. Using the DBR outcome data to monitor the
target behavior over time
Academically engaged is actively or passively participating in the
classroom activity.
Examples: writing, raising hand, answering a question,
talking about a lesson, listening to the teacher, reading
silently, or looking at instructional materials.
 Brief trainings utilizing practice & feedback
to teach parents how to utilize DBR
 Parents will be given a laminated,
magnetized DBR standard form to hang on
fridge
DBR
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 Parents will use DBR to rate teen’s target
behaviors following specified time (e.g.,
family dinner)
 Will record DBR via text, email, or BASIS
 Will be given tokens as incentives for use in
the clinic store
 During “check-in” portion of parent sessions,
parents will receive feedback on DBR data,
including graphs for visual assessment
 DBR will be used to analyze changes in teen
behavior over course of treatment
 Chafouleas, S.M.; Riley-Tillman, T.C., & Sugai G. (2007). School Based Behavior
Assessment: Informing Instruction and Intervention. New York, NY: The Guilford Press.
 Chafouleas, S.M.; Riley-Tillman, T.C., & McDougal, J. (2002). "Good, bad, or in-between:
How does the daily behavior report card rate?". Psychology in the Schools 39: 157-169.
 Chafouleas, S.M.; Riley-Tillman, T.C., & Sassu, K.A. (2006). "Acceptability and reported use
of Daily Behavior Report Cards among teachers". Journal of Positive Behavior Interventions,
(8): 174-182.
 Forehand, R. & Kotchick, B.A. (1996). Cultural diversity: A wake-up call for parent training.
Behaviioral Therapy, 27, 187-206.
 Kazdin, A. (1997). Parent management training: Evidence, outcomes, and issues. Journal of
the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, 36(10), 1349–1356.
 Riley-Tillman, T.C.; Chafouleas, S.M., & Eckert, T. (2008). "Daily Behavior Report Cards and
Systematic Direct Observation: An Investigation of the Acceptability, Reported Training and
Use, and Decision Reliability among School Psychologists". Journal of Behavioral Education.
 Sharry, J., Guerin, S., Griffin, C., & Drumm, M. (2005). An evaluation of the Parents Plus
Early Years Programme: A video-based early intervention for parents of pre-school children
with behavioral and developmental difficulties. Clinical Child Psychology and Psychiatry,
10(3), 319-336.
 Webster-Stratton, C., Kolpacoff, M. & Hollinsworth, T. (1988). Self-administered videotape
therapy for families with conduct-problem children: Comparison with two cost-effective
treatments and a control group. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 56(4), 558-
566.
 Webster-Stratton, C., Hollinsworht, T., & Kolpacoff, M. (1989). The long-term effectiveness
and clinical significance of three cost-effective training programs for families with conduct-
problem children. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 57(4), 550-553.