Background: A large evidence base suggests that without effective early intervention, young children who exhibit persistent challenging behavior often face a host of long-term social and academic challenges (Bulotsky-Shearer & Fantuzzo, 2011; Hauser-Cram & Woodman, 2016; Kazdin, 1995; Lane et al., 2008; Miller et al., 2017). Challenging…

Constructive parent-child conflict interactions that teach children to problem-solve and negotiate can enhance children's social adjustment. This paper identifies constructive and destructive qualities of mother-child conflict and explores whether child temperament moderated associations with changes in externalizing problems over time. One…

Predictable patterns in early parent-child interactions may help lay the foundation for how children learn to self-regulate. The present study examined contingencies between maternal teaching and directives and child compliance in mother-child problem-solving interactions at age 3.5 and whether they predicted children's behavioral regulation and…

Discrete trial training (DTT) is a well-established intervention for teaching skills to children with autism; however, few published guidelines are available for determining whether a child's rate of learning a particular skill is satisfactory and, if not, what to do. We assert that progress within 8-10 teaching sessions usually is evidence of…