The School Readiness Parenting Program: Results from an Open Trial

Parent training (PT) is a well-validated intervention for children with early externalizing behavior problems (EBP) with Parent-Child Interaction Therapy (PCIT) being one of the most researched programs. PCIT is traditionally delivered individually to parents with some limited research showing the feasibility of using PCIT in small groups of 4-5 families. Given the cost of providing individual PT, the purpose of this study was to examine the initial promise of an 8-week School Readiness Parenting Program (SRPP) that included delivery of group PCIT to a large number of parents (15 parents/group) in a community setting.

Participants included 30 preschool children (M age of 5.33; 77% Hispanic) with at-risk or clinically elevated levels of EBP according to the BASC-2 (M t-score = 67.83) and their parents who participated in an 8-week SRPP. These families were concurrently participating in a summer treatment program for pre-kindergarteners (STP-PreK; Graziano et al., 2014). The SRPP was conducted weekly (1.5-2 hour sessions). The first half of each session involved behavioral management strategies based on PCIT with four sessions focused on child-directed skills (e.g., labeled praise, reflection) during “special time” while another four sessions focused on parent-direct skills (e.g., effective commands, time out). Subgroup activities entailed parents practicing the newly acquired skills with their own children while the other parents in the subgroup observed and provided positive feedback. The second half of each session focused on group discussions on school readiness topics. Across all assessments (baseline, post-treatment, 6-month follow-up), mothers completed various behavioral and parenting measures. Standard PCIT observation tasks (child-led play, parent-led play, & clean-up) were also conducted.

The SRPP was effective in improving parenting skills (increasing “DO skills” and reducing “DON’T skills“) with large effect sizes observed (d’s ranged from 1.76 to 1.98). Additionally, parents reported improvements in their discipline practices (reduction in laxness, over-reactivity, & verbosity) and levels of stress (d’s range from .91 to 1.68). Lastly, improvements in child compliance were observed from baseline to post-treatment. Most importantly, these gains were largely maintained at a 6-month follow-up evaluation (all ES were still significant), although some outcomes had a quadratic effect. These findings highlight the initial promise of the SRPP, which includes delivery of group PCIT to a large number of parents (15 per group), in improving parenting outcomes and observed child compliance.