Education

1. Training Parents in Positive
Parenting Skills and
Direct Behavior Ratings
Sayward Harrison, MA/CAS

2. SCHOOL SYSTEM
School Personnel Awareness
& Training
COMMUNITY
Parent Awareness
& Training
SCHOOL-BASED HEALTH CLINIC
Direct Services to the Child
(Counseling, Therapy, Behavioral Supports)
Healthy Child

3.  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

4.  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

5. 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

6.  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…

7.  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

8.  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

9.  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

10.  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

11. 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.

12.  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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13.  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

14.  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

15.  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.