Fathers as Intervention Agents for Their Children with Developmental Disabilities

ABSTRACT

Parent training aimed at aiding children to overcome social and behavioral problems is an area that has continued to gain attention and support. Very little of the current research has been with developmentally disabled children, the focus of this study. Additionally, for most parent training programs, “parents” actually refers to mothers. In this study three fathers and their developmentally disabled children, who ranged in age from 2 years 10 months to 4 years 5 months, were studied. A multiple baseline across fathers' behaviors was utilized for participants to evaluate effects of parent training on fathers' target behaviors. Child compliance and inappropriate behaviors were also addressed. Parent training resulted in desirable changes on a range of target behaviors. The implications of these findings are discussed.