Eighteen mother-child dyads were referred for psychological help because of the children's oppositional behaviors and the mothers' aversive reactions to the children. All dyads were from low income families in which the mothers reported themselves to be relatively isolated from social contact in their communities. Following a baseline phase, the mothers were trained to modify their children's oppositional behaviors through time out and a point system. Fourteen of the dyads were observed in three phases of the study: baseline, parent training or treatment, and a 1-year follow-up period. In Phases one and two, child opposition and mother aversive reactions to the children were measured twice weekly by professional observers in the home settings. During Phase three (follow-up), these observations occurred twice per month. In addition, the mothers' self-reported contacts with people in their communities were obtained immediately after each observation. Results showed significant improvement in the mother-child problems during the parent training or treatment phase. However, the problems returned to baseline levels of occurrence during the follow-up phase. The self-report findings indicated that number of mother contacts with friends was an inverse predictor of these problems. On days marked by high proportions of friend contacts, motherchild problems were lower in frequency than on days marked by low proportions of friend contacts. These correlational findings were taken to suggest that a mother's extrafamily social contacts may influence her child interaction patterns at home. This possibility was discussed as a factor in the long-term success of parent training as a treatment strategy.DESCRIPTORS: child-mother behavior problems, coercive contacts, friendship, correlational analyses, indirect influencesChild improve behavior problems in family settings following parent training in social learning techniques (Forehand & Atkeson, 1977). More important, there are also recent data indicating that these improvements may be maintained after such parent training. In Patterson and Fleishman (1979), 33 problem families were observed in a 12-month follow-up phase after successful parent training. At the 12-month time frame the children's behavior problems were sampled through direct observation and parent self-report.

Parent—child transactions provide an important social context for the development of adaptive and problem behaviors in young children with autism.Teaching parents to develop alternative transactional pathways often leads to positive behavioral patterns in their children.We taught three parents the philosophy and practice of mindfulness in a 12-week course and assessed the outcome of the training on their children's behavior. In addition, the mothers rated satisfaction with their parenting skills and interactions with their children. Results showed that the mothers' mindful parenting decreased their children's aggression, noncompliance, and self-injury and increased the mothers' satisfaction with their parenting skills and interactions with their children.We speculated on the possible reasons for the efficacy of mindful parenting in decreasing the children's problem behaviors without the application of specific, programmed contingencies for the children's behavior.

Research shows that after training in the philosophy and practice of mindfulness, parents can mindfully attend to the challenging behaviors of their children with autism. Parents also report an increased satisfaction with their parenting skills and social interactions with their children. These findings were replicated and extended with 4 parents of children who had developmental disabilities, exhibited aggressive behavior, and had limited social skills. After mindfulness training, the parents were able to decrease aggressive behavior and increase their children's social skills. They also reported a greater practice of mindfulness, increased satisfaction with their parenting, more social interactions with their children, and lower parenting stress. Furthermore, the children showed increased positive and decreased negative social interactions with their siblings. We speculate that mindfulness produces transformational change in the parents that is reflected in enhanced positive behavioral transactions with their children.

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The contributions of applied behavior analysis as a natural science approach to the study of human behavior are acknowledged. However, it is also argued that applied behavior analysis has provided limited access to the full range of environmental events that influence socially significant behavior. Recent changes in applied behavior analysis to include analysis of side effects and social validation represent ways in which the traditional applied behavior analysis conceptual and methodological model has been profitably expanded. A third area of expansion, the analysis of setting events, is proposed by the authors. The historical development of setting events as a behavior influence concept is traced. Modifications of the basic applied behavior analysis methodology and conceptual systems that seem necessary to setting event analysis are discussed and examples of descriptive and experimental setting event analyses are presented.