Outpatient treatment of the acting out child: Procedures, long term follow-up data, and clinical problems

Abstract

This monograph consists of five sections. In the first section we delineate the characteristics of acting out children, our view of the course of development of the problem, various treatments which have been utilized, and based upon the results of these treatments, the need for long term follow-up data of parent training, the most effective treatment available. In the second section we describe our parent training program: the parent interview, parent completed assessment measures, behavioral observation assessment measures, the treatment setting, therapists, the treatment program, and a brief overview of the outcome data. In the third section we present the method, results and discussion of a comprehensive follow-up study conducted four and a half to ten and a half years after parent training. The results indicate that the treated families were functioning similarly to a comparison (‘normal’) sample of families. In the fourth section we discuss the implications of the present findings for future research in parent training. In the final section we make recommendations about who should conduct parent training, what components should be included in such training, why such a therapeutic approach should be utilized, and finally, some of the problems associated with parent training are delineated.