Empirical Derivation of Child Compliance Time

Abstract

Assessment of child compliance has been characterized by the use of rationally-derived rather than empirically-derived compliance criteria and compliance times. In this study compliance times were derived empirically by coding videotapes of 15 nonreferred preschool children and their mothers during two standard observation conditions. The results suggest that 85% of the time these children began to comply within 5.4 seconds of a parental command. The average conditional probability of completing compliance given beginning compliance was .73. Compliance time was not significantly different as a function of observation condition or command type. Direct commands were, however, observed to influence positively the likelihood of compliance. The importance of empirically deriving compliance times for the particular observation system used as well as assessing the influence of command type and contextual factors was discussed.