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related to the behavior of the other member of the dyad). The DPICS category of Descriptive/Reflective Question has also been divided into two types of questions: (a) Information Questions that request a verbal response from the listener that is more than an acknowledgment, and (b) Descriptive/Reflective Questions that require no more than a brief verbal acknowledgment from the listener.
The Question categories were divided to enable separate recordings of
components of interactions that may be directive or coercive and have a higher likelihood of eliciting noncompliance or inappropriate behavior in children. The division of these categories is intended to allow researchers and clinicians to examine further the maladaptive interactions that distinguish children with behavior problems and their parents from families in which these difficulties are not reported.
DPICS II permits several additional sequences to be measured in the interaction. Parental Labeled Praise following child Compliance to Commands is now coded as Contingent Labeled Praise, and whether a question requesting information has been answered appropriately or not can also be recorded. This sequential information may be helpful in determining the amount of reciprocity in the dyad and may be a feature of parent-child dyads that distinguishes clinic-referred families from normal families.
Finally, several categories contained in the original system have been removed.
Reasons for removing the categories included poor interobserver agreement, infrequency of the behavior and lack of utility of the category. Parent categories that are no longer contained in the system are Irrelevant Verbalization, Responds to (child) Deviant, Ignores (child) Deviant. Child categories that have been eliminated are Change Activity and Cry.