TRAINING PARENTS TO OBSERVE AND RECORD - A DATA-BASED OUTCOME EVALUATION OF A PILOT CURRICULUM

Despite the prevalence of training parents in the use of child behavio r management strategies, relatively link investigative attention has b een devoted to promoting acquisition of parent observational and recor ding skills. In this study, we examined the efficacy of a brief curric ulum designed to reach parents how to observe and record targeted chil d behaviors systematically. Subsequent to instruction, each of six par ticipating parents demonstrated, in an analogue context, higher levels of both occurrence and nonoccurrence agreement, based upon their reco rdings of child behavior when compared with those of a panel of experi enced professionals. Agreement of parental recordings with those of pr ofessionals typically increased to a predetermined mastery criterion a nd stabilized subsequent to training, relative to a high degree of var iability during baseline. Results are discussed in terms of directions for further refinement of the curriculum and additional study of its impact.