A six-year controlled trial of prevention of children's behavior disorders

Preschool interviews between a clinician and mothers were studied to determine their influence upon the behavioral patterns and learning abilities of the mother's children. After six years, 124 children of this experimental group were compared with 122 control children; the results indicated that a significant number of experimental children had fewer fears, sleep disorders, eating problems, loud modes of speech, and aggression toward others and fewer of the girls distorted events to their advantage or demanded their parents to share in joint play. A larger proportion of the experimental children had positive feelings, and to a lesser degree negative feelings, toward their mothers, but a greater number were late for school, with more of the boys being excitable and hard to control. The greater benefits, which were more apparent in the girls than in the boys, were consistent with an effectiveness of more firmly expressed views about the girls, whereas the confidence of the boys' mothers may well have been affected by too cautious an approach to discipline problems. The interviews probably had no influence on the children's learning capacities.