Elsevier

Behavior Therapy

Volume 21, Issue 3, Summer 1990, Pages 257-271
Behavior Therapy

Adjusting chair timeout enforcement procedures for oppositional children

https://doi.org/10.1016/S0005-7894(05)80329-6Get rights and content

Mothers of noncompliant, clinic-referred preschool children were randomly assigned to 1 of 4 chair timeout (TO) enforcement procedures: Spank, Hold, Barrier, or Child Release. Standardized Forehand compliance training was implemented. Hold procedures were associated with less compliance criterion performance and excessive TO escape efforts. Child Release procedures were associated with excessive TOs. Neither Hold nor Child Release procedures are recommended. Barrier and Spank procedures appeared equally effective, replicating prior studies. The importance of monitoring and adjusting initial clinic TO enforcement procedures was documented. Noncompliant children who resisted TO displayed significantly less improvement in compliance than noncompliant children who accepted TO. Group data were obtained in the home setting across a four-week period. Most children displayed near-zero levels of TO resistance within 3 weeks in the home.

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    The authors gratefully acknowledge the role of many students in the collection of data and training of parents. Appreciation is extended to Le Matthews for his continued assistance with statistical analyses. A subset of these data was previously presented by the senior author in a Poster Session at the Annual Meeting of the Association for Advancement of Behavior Therapy, New York, November, 1988.

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