EFFECT OF BEHAVIOURAL PARENT TRAINING ON PARENT’S VERBALISATION IN REDUCING DISRUPTIVE BEHAVIOURS AMONG CHILDREN WITH ATTENTION DEFICIT HYPERACTIVITY DISORDER

The aim of this study is to investigate the effect of behavioural parent training on parents’ verbalisation in reducing disruptive behaviours among preschool children with ADHD. There were three children diagnosed with ADHD-Combined (ADHD-C), two children with ADHD-Hyperactivity Impulsivity (ADHD-HI), and one child with ADHD-Inattentive (ADHD-I) involved in the study. Parent-Child Interaction Therapy (PCIT) is one of the promising behavioural parent training programmes has been employed in the study. By employing the PCIT, the pattern of changes in two main variables, parent’s verbalisation and child disruptive behaviours in two different parenting skills, Child Directed Interaction (CDI) and Parent Directed Interaction (PDI) were observed and coded. The A-B single-case experimental design was applied to systematically test the effect of PCIT intervention on targeted variables throughout four different phases: Baseline (A1), Intensive Treatment (B-IT), Maintenance Treatment (B-MT) and Follow-up (F1). The pre-test and post-test assessments conducted were using Eyberg Child Behaviour Inventory (ECBI) and Daily Parent Observation (DPO) to measure disruptive behaviour, and Dyadic Parent-Child Interaction Coding System (DPICS) to measure parent’s verbalisation. It found that when parents showed some improvement in their verbalisation, the children scores showed below clinical cut-off points on measures for disruptive behaviours. Therefore, the findings indicated that PCIT was effective in increasing parent’s proficiency in using positive verbalisation (praise, reflections and behavioural descriptions) and reducing their negative verbalisation (commands, questions, and criticism) when interacting with their child.