Background: This study aimed to evaluate the effectiveness of the Parents Plus programme with families of pre-school children with developmental disabilities and significant behavioural problems in the Irish health service. The Parents Plus programme is a group-based parent training package involving video modelling, which was designed to be…

Objective: To provide an initial description of the effectiveness and pharmacokinetics (PK) of quetiapine in aggressive children with conduct disorder (CD). Method: This 8-week, open-label outpatient trial, enrolled patients ages 6 to 12 years with CD. Outcome measures included the Rating of Aggression Against People and/or Property Scale…

The purpose of this study was to compare the effectiveness of habit reversal (HR) to a wait-list control as a treatment for chronic skin picking in adults. Twenty-five adults with a chronic skin-picking problem were randomly assigned to a wait-list control or HR group. At pretreatment, posttreatment, and a 3-month follow-up, self-reported skin…

The case study of a therapy that restored speech for an electively mute 14-year-old boy is presented. Treatment based on contingency management had not been successful, but an escape procedure released verbal responding. Limitations and cautions in use of escape therapy are discussed. (SLD)

This case study presents a 9-year-old boy who exhibited severe stereotypic self-injurious behavior. An escalating differential-reinforcement-of-other-behavior schedule, mediated through token reinforcement, eliminated self-injurious behavior quickly for up to 30-minute periods, and was more effective than social reinforcement. Crying behavior…

Study assesses the acceptability of six child-management interventions as rated by mothers (N=20) of children referred for treatment for a disruptive-behavior disorder. Positive reinforcement was rated as a more acceptable treatment than response time, time-out, differential attention, overcorrection, and spanking. Results validate findings of…

A medication efficacy graph was developed, revised, and applied in a case study to effectively monitor progress of a client with profound mental retardation and maladaptive behaviors. The graph enables clinicians to measure and display not just incidents of maladaptive behaviors but weighted maladaptive behaviors, adaptive behaviors, potency of…

A study combined group sweating and group counseling. Four adolescent boys with disruptive behavior disorders participated in 12 sweat therapy sessions. They reported the sessions useful for sharing personal concerns and receiving assistance with problem solving. Three boys showed improvement in self-esteem. Advantages of sweat therapy over other…

Examined the effect of drug treatment on reducing HIV-related risky sex behavior among 796 adolescents entering drug treatment programs in four U.S. cities. Found that 54 percent reported reductions in risky sex behavior after treatment. Lack of improvement was associated with conduct-disorder diagnosis, abuse history, unmet physical and emotional…

Controversy exists regarding appropriate methods for summarizing treatment outcomes for single-subject designs. Nonregression- and regression-based methods have been proposed to summarize the efficacy of single-subject interventions with proponents of both methods arguing for the superiority of their respective approaches. To compare findings for…

Multi-component interventions for conduct disorder target several contexts of a child's life (e.g., both home and school environments) and are generally more effective than single-component behavioral interventions. Whether the multi-component approach is cost-effective remains an unanswered question. This article analyzes two decades of data from…

This study explored predictors of treatment response and attrition in Parent-Child Interaction Therapy (PCIT). Participants were 99 families of 3-to 6-year-old children with disruptive behavior disorders. Multiple logistic regression was used to identify those pretreatment child, family, and accessibility factors that were predictive of success or…

This article highlights the inclusion of Mode Deactivation Therapy as a treatment modality for families in crisis. As an empirically validated treatment, Mode Deactivation Therapy has been effective in treating a wide variety of psychological issues. Mode Deactivation Therapy, (MDT) was developed to treat adolescents with disorders of conduct…

A study evaluated the effectiveness of progressive muscle relaxation (PMR) as a proactive single-component aggression-reduction intervention for 24 students (ages 6- 9) classified as having emotional disabilities in a day school/treatment program. Students also had histories of aggressive behavior. Results supported PMR as a proactive short-term…

Severely and profoundly mentally retarded institutionalized residents (N=74) who received lithium carbonate for behavior disorders were followed in a 10-year retrospective study. Thirty-one subjects demonstrated a sustained major reduction or elimination of behavioral symptoms. Lithium responders were likely to be older and to present symptoms of…