We examined whether mother-child discrepancies in perceived child behavior problems relate to dysfunctional interactions between mother and child and stress in the mother. Participants included 239 children (6-16 years old; 58 girls, 181 boys) referred for oppositional, aggressive, and antisocial behavior, and their mothers. Mother-child…

This is the second of two papers providing a critique of categorisation and of the biomedical interpretation of personal adjustment issues experienced by children and youth. Whereas the first paper (Stanley, 2006; published in "Kairaranga" earlier this year) appraised this approach from an array of theoretical vantage points, this paper…

Background: Delay aversion, the motivation to escape or avoid delay, results in preference for small immediate over large delayed rewards. Delay aversion has been proposed as one distinctive psychological process that may underlie the behavioural symptoms and cognitive deficits of attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). Furthermore, the…

Background: The Restricted, Repetitive Behaviours and Interests (RRBIs) are represented in the DSM-IV and measured by the Autism Diagnostic Interview-Revised (ADI-R) as one of the three homogeneous symptom categories of Pervasive Developmental Disorders. Although this conceptualisation is well accepted in the field, the grouping of symptoms is…

Background: The underlying behavioral/psychological processes of attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder are unclear. Motivational factors, related to dopamine dysfunction, may play an important role in the development of the behavioral symptoms. Particularly, infrequent, but not frequent, reinforcers have been suggested to be associated with…

Background: Despite findings that parent depression increases children's risk for internalizing and externalizing problems, little is known about other factors that combine with parent depression to contribute to behavior problems. Methods: As part of a longitudinal, interdisciplinary study on childhood-onset depression (COD), we examined the…

This study investigated the entry behavior and temperamental characteristics of aggressive/rejected and nonaggressive/popular kindergarten and first-grade children. An analog entry situation was used to assess children's entry skills. Aggressive/rejected children had more difficulty than nonaggressive/popular children delivering their entry bids…

Official state program reviews of 204 substitute care facilities were assessed for the types of behavior management and behavioral interventions used and the extent to which agency practices were consistent with learning theory principles. Data were also collected on the type and number of professional staff available to implement and oversee…

Ninety-three parents and 102 adolescents were referred by juvenile court and treated for substance abuse and a co-morbid diagnosis of either oppositional defiant or conduct disorder using a parent education program over a six-week period. The goals of this study were to assess whether or not active parent involvement and the concurrent treatment…

In this article Denise Chilvers and Angela Cole describe a school-based study which is located very much in an action-research idiom. Starting from a questioning, but collegial, stance on identifying positive interventions for children who challenge, the authors illustrate how theory and reflection on practice can lead to significant innovations…

Despite recent research indicating that 1 of the pivotal times for identifying pathways to early conduct problems is the toddler period, few family-based preventive interventions have been specifically designed to modify child disruptive behavior during this age period. This randomized trial tested the effectiveness of the Family Check-Up in…

Self-management procedures have been used in school settings to successfully reduce problem behaviors, as well as to reinforce appropriate behavior. A multiple-baseline across participants design was applied in this study to evaluate the effects of using a self-management procedure to enhance the classroom preparation skills of secondary school…

Previous research has produced mixed findings on the role of child and family factors in the genesis of childhood cruelty. The authors examined the relationships of cruelty to animals to a range of child and family factors. First, the authors test the idea that cruelty is a callous aggression that will be more strongly associated with psychopathic…

Aggressive behavior in childhood has long been separated into that which is proactively motivated and that which is reactive. We report a meta-analytic review of the existing empirical literature that examines the associations of each type of aggression with six indices of psychosocial adjustment: internalizing problems, emotional dysregulation…

Objective: The purpose of this study was to assess heritability of activity, attention, and impulsivity by comparing young monozygotic (MZ) twins with dizygotic (DZ) twins using objective measures. Method: The OPTAx test is an infrared motion analysis to record the movement pattern during a continuous performance test. Seventeen MZ and 12 same…