Parent Executive Dysfunction and Pre-Treatment Skill Use in Families Seeking Treatment for Early Onset Behavior Disorders

Behavioral Parent Training (BPT) is the standard of care for children with early onset (3 to 8 years old) behavior disorders; yet, like other evidence-based interventions, BPT has significant variability in treatment response (e.g., Chorpita et al., 2011; Kaehler et al., 2016; Leijten et al., 2013). Optimizing BPT requires further understanding of how differing family presentations, such as parental executive dysfunction, are associated with pre-treatment parenting skills. However, research has not yet determined if parent ED within treatment-seeking families vary significantly from normed populations or how variability in parent ED is associated with parent skill use at baseline. Findings revealed that parent ED within this sample did not significantly differ from a normed sample. Additionally, parent ED did not explain variability of Attends or Questions/Instructions used in this sample. Contrary to the study hypotheses, parent ED had a positive relationship with Rewards use. Clinical implications and future directions are discussed.