This report presents a study testing the effectiveness of a parent-training program that focused on African and American parents of young children; it provides details of outcomes and discussion of implications for preventive parent training programs and the role of intervention dose on parent-child outcomes.
The authors report on a study tested the efficacy of a 12-session parent training program, the Chicago Parent Program (CPP), which was developed in collaboration with African American and Latino parents. Using growth curve modeling, the authors analyzed data from 253 parents of two- to four-year-old children enrolled in seven daycare centers that served low-income families. Daycare centers were matched and randomly assigned to intervention and waiting-list control conditions. At one-year follow-up, intervention-group parents used less corporal punishment and issued fewer commands with their children, and intervention-group children exhibited fewer behavior problems during observed play and clean-up sessions than control-group children. Additional group differences were observed when dose was included in the analytic model. Parents who participated in at least 50 percent of CPP sessions also reported greater improvements in parenting self-efficacy, more consistent discipline, greater warmth, and a decline in child behavior problems when compared to reports from controls. The authors also discuss the implications of these results for preventive parent training with low-income African American and Latino parents, and the role of intervention dose on parent-child outcomes. Publisher Abstract Provided