Role-play assessments as a measure of skill acquisition in a parenting program
This study sought to evaluate role-plays assessments with adult role-players as a measure of parents' skill acquisition as taught in the Incredible Years (IY) program. Parent performance during the role-play assessments was compared to parent performance during parent-child interactions. Experiment 1 of this study included role- 6 play assessments for the IY program in a multiple-baseline design across 6 skills with pre and post parent-child interactions. Participants were 7 parents with children between the ages of 2 and 8 years. The parent-child interactions were also scored using the Dyadic Parent Interaction Coding System (DPICS). The effectiveness of the role-play assessments as a measure of skill acquisition as demonstrated by an increase in scores only after the skill is formally taught in the program, and similarity between behavior during the role-play assessments and behavior during the parent-child interactions, was not possible due to lack of data and participant attrition. Using a repeated measures design, Experiment 2 addressed limitations of Experiment 1 by utilizing 4 participants with no involvement in the IY program. Role-play assessments and parent-child interactions were conducted 5 times (1 time per week) with 1 training session for the skill area with the lowest scores across the first 3 baseline sessions during the 41 h observation. Results demonstrated differences between parent behavior with an adult role-player compared to their child with variable responding in both the child and structured and role-play assessments during baseline. Increases were observed during both post-training sessions with increases in the final session for the parent-child interactions for the selected skill area for 3 of the 4 participants. These data suggest that the role-plays are sensitive to detecting behavior change; however, the parents' behavior with an adult role player may differ from behavior with their children.
Parenting, Parent and child, Role playing, Child psychotherapy Parent participation, Psychology, Social and Behavioral Sciences
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