Citation

Dawson B, Armas A, McGrath ML, Kelly JA. J. Fam. Violence 1986; 1(3): 209-221.

Affiliation

Department of Psychology, University of Southern Mississippi, Southern Station Box 5025, 39406 Hattiesburg, MS; Department of Psychiatry and Human Behavior, University of Mississippi Medical Center, 2500 North State Street, 39216 Jackson, MS, USA

Copyright

(Copyright © 1986, Holtzbrinck Springer Nature Publishing Group)

DOI

10.1007/BF00978560

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

Child neglect, the failure to adequately meet a youngster''s care needs, is the most frequent form of child maltreatment reported to welfare authorities. However, there have been few empirical reports of treatment outcomes for adjudicated, child neglectful parents. In the current study, an initial assessment of three neglectful parents revealed substantial deficits in cognitive problem-solving skills related to child care judgment. Treatment, consisting of modeling, shaping, practice, and feedback was used to improve each parent''s child care problem-solving skills in a multiple baseline design. Skill enhancement was also found for untrained (generalization) problem situations, and independent caseworker ratings of each family''s functioning provided external validation of the intervention''s clinical impact.