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Group affection activities were used to increase the interaction of three autistic children with their nonhandicapped peers in an integrated early childhood setting. Peer interaction increased during free play when the affection activities were conducted, but not when similar activities without the affection component were used. This interaction included initiations by both the autistic and nonhandicapped children, with reciprocal interactions occurring more frequently with nonhandicapped peers who had participated in the affection activities.

The family‐centered service delivery model used in early intervention is meant to empower families of children with disabilities. The present analysis examined the effects of empowerment and father identity on father involvement with children with disabilities. Father involvement was measured using three indices: attachment (i.e., feeling a strong connection to the child), engagement (i.e., participating in activities with the child), and responsibility (i.e., meeting the child's needs). Father empowerment and father identity, measured as salience, satisfaction, and reflected appraisals, consistently predicted higher levels of father involvement in hierarchical regression models. In addition, mediation analyses revealed that father identity partially mediated the relationship between empowerment and father involvement. These findings support the family‐centered service delivery model and suggest that it may be able to improve the lives of children with disabilities by enhancing father role identity and subsequent fathering activities.

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The present study attempted to evaluate experimentally the relationship between two response classes, enuresis and oppositional behavior. One child who had a long history of bed-wetting was observed in his home setting. Parents' reports and initial observations confirmed that the child was oppositional much of the time. When a timeout operation and differential attention were presented, removed, and presented again, the frequency of oppositional behavior decreased, increased, and decreased accordingly. Fluctuations in enuretic activity also correlated with the presence and absence of the timeout and differential attention operations. The suppression of oppositional behavior and enuretic activity persisted over an 18-month treatment period. It was suggested that the parental operations performed on oppositional behavior may have led to an increase in the parents' social reward value. Cessation of enuretic activity was explained in terms of a shift in parental reinforcer effectiveness.Yates (1969) indicated that the conditioning method for treating childhood enuresis may not be as effective as was once thought. He recently compiled results from every study that selected an initial arrest criterion of six dry nights per week and provided follow-up data over a minimum period of six months. Taking these studies as a whole, Yates reports that only 53% of the cases were successfully treated by the conditioning method. Although he suggests that this figure might be somewhat higher if experimenters had more closely supervised parents in administration of the method, even the most careful instructions are no guarantee that mistakes will not be made in the home (Bostock and Shackelton, 1957).When initial symptom arrest has been achieved, it is not clear that the treatment effect will be sustained once the conditioning apparatus is removed. Lovibond (1964) reported that the relapse rate may be as high as 35 to 40% when follow-up extends to 2 yr or more. Turner and Young (1966) reported a similar relapse figure over a 3 to 5 yr follow-up period.