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issued an average of 93 (SD = 29). This finding, however, has not been consistently demonstrated in other studies comparing referred and non-referred groups. Griest, Forehand, Wells, and McMahon (1980) found no differences between groups of mothers on total positive attention and contingent positive attention. Webster-Stratton (1985) found that Praise was significantly different between clinic and non-clinic groups of mothers, but found no differences between groups on Questions, Physical Positives, and Descriptive and Reflective Comments.
Overall, these studies suggest that children with behavior problems have
significantly higher rates of noncompliance and inappropriate behavior, and emit fewer prosocial behaviors when observed with their mothers. In addition, mothers of children with behavior problems issue significantly more commands and negative verbalizations, such as criticism.
Father-Child Interactions
In the first observational study of conduct-disordered children that included both mothers and fathers and analyzed them separately, few and relatively small differences were found between fathers and mothers in their interactions with their young children (Robinson & Eyberg, 1981). Like mothers, fathers of conduct problem children issued more direct commands than fathers of normal children. Fathers, however, tended to be even more directive and give more indirect commands than mothers when they were instructed to let their child lead the play. Similar to mothers, fathers of clinic-referred children issued significantly more critical statements than fathers of non-referred children. In addition, the clinic-referred children engaged in higher rates of deviant and