Abstract
The purpose of the present study was to examine the effect of the presence of a reliability observer on the number of positive parent behaviors recorded by a primary observer during naturalistic parent-child interactions. Thirty parents and their young clinic-referred children served as subjects. After two initial home observations, a reliability observer was present to record data in observation session 3, but not session 4, for one-half the subjects. For the remaining subjects the reliability observer was present in session 4 but not session 3. The results of a 2 × 2 analysis of variance indicated a group by session interaction which resulted from an increase in maternal attention to the child in the presence of a reliability observer. Hypotheses to explain the finding are presented and implications of the results are discussed.
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This research was supported in part by NIMH Grant MH28859-01.
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Wells, K.C., McMahon, R.J., Forehand, R. et al. Effect of a reliability observer on the frequency of positive parent behavior recorded during naturalistic parent-child interactions. Journal of Behavioral Assessment 2, 65–69 (1980). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01321433
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01321433