Question

in regard to seeing improvement in a child behavior, do you think there are other influences that play a role when looking at the affects of Parent-Chile Interaction Therapy( PCIT ) for Oppositional Children? Maturation? Bias?

Answer 1

Parent-child interaction therapy is the intervention therapy developed by Sheila Eyeberg especially for the children between the ages of 2 -7 years old. It is the combination of play therapy and behavioral therapy by using effective parenting techniques.

To have a healthy relationship between the parent and the child a good positive and reinforcing communication is important. This therapy targets in improving the child-parent relationship through positive communication.

The children who have gone through trauma or suffering from autism or other disorders develop disruptive behavior. Usually, PCIT therapy is used to improve the targeted behavior.

As per nature vs. nurture perspective, the child inherits certain characteristics from his patents, and at a young, the children learn other behavior through interaction with their friends or by copying their model as proved in Bandura’s Bobo doll experiment. The development of the children at this age is affected by both nature and nurture.

The children who show disruptive behavior can be encouraged to use positive behavior by the parents if they use encouraging and reinforcing communication with the child.

Under this therapy parents and caregivers are taught to loudly interact with the child to improve his vocabulary and imitate a child's good behavior by appreciation and acknowledging it.

This therapy teaches the parents/caregivers to use a technique that would induce positive communication and behavior in the child through playing and interacting that encourage and reassure the child that his positive behavior is appreciated.

Maturation in a child is his ability to understand and react according to the situation. The behavior of the child would reflect what he understood through interaction and environment. The maturation comes without any external stimuli but it is useful in the learning process as maturation makes one understand and react that would look positive and avoid creating any negative situation.

Bias is prejudice and discriminative behavior if the child is subjected to bias treatment that can be abusing physically, emotionally, and psychologically, it would have a direct negative effect on a child’s mental, emotional and physical health.

PCIT helps in removing the bias behavior by the parents as the child depends upon their parents for his needs and develop trust or mistrust as per the behavior of the parents/caregivers (Eric Erickson theory). This therapy target in removing the bias behavior by the parents and use the communication to the level of understanding of the child