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DEVELOPMENTAL TREATMENT OF ACTING OUT BEHAVIORS IN CHILDREN
Abstract
The purpose of the present study was to assess the efficacy of implementing intervention strategies designed according to a child's ability to express his/her understanding of another's perspective. Elementary school children who were determined to manifest acting-out behaviors were divided into two age groups. They were then individually administered an instrument that assessed their ability to express an understanding of another's perspective. Both age groups were divided into two treatment groups. The subjects were divided into groups according to age rather than according to developmental perspective-taking level because several studies have found a high correlation between perspective-taking and age (Feffer & Gourevitch, 1960; Selman & Byrne, 1974). Dividing the subjects into groups according to age was assumed to be comparable to dividing them according to their developmental status. The high correlation between age and perspective-taking level was also found in the present study. The enactment treatment condition required each child to individually enact a problematic incident with the experimenter, discuss the thoughts and feelings of the subject, and then reenact the situation using a more viable solution. The role-playing treatment condition also required the subjects to individually enact a problematic situation with the experimenter. Subsequently, the thoughts and feelings of both actors were discussed and the situation was reenacted with the experimenter playing the role of the subject and the subject taking the experimenter's role. It was found that the younger subject's ability to express an understanding of another's perspective improved in the enactment treatment condition while their aggressive behaviors substantially decreased in the role-playing treatment condition. It seemed the target behaviors improved when they were molded and the model's thoughts, feelings, and behaviors were processed. Since the younger childrens' preassessed level of perspective-taking skills was comparable to those of preschool childrens' whose prosocial skills were previously found to improve in a modeling treatment condition, modeling seemed to be a viable treatment for the younger group. It was also found that the older groups' ability to express an understanding of another's perspective improved in both treatment conditions while their aggressive behaviors increased in both treatment conditions. . . . (Author's abstract exceeds stipulated maximum length. Discontinued here with permission of author.) UMI
Subject Area
Developmental psychology
Recommended Citation
LANGLEY, JACQUELINE FAY, "DEVELOPMENTAL TREATMENT OF ACTING OUT BEHAVIORS IN CHILDREN" (1983). ETD collection for University of Nebraska-Lincoln. AAI8328179.
https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/dissertations/AAI8328179