Reducing problem behavior during care-giving in families of preschool-aged children with developmental disabilities.
Standard Stepping Stones Triple P is enough—extra coping lessons do not improve child or parent outcomes.
01Research in Context
What this study did
The team compared two Stepping Stones Triple P courses for parents of preschoolers with delays. One course added coping-skills lessons. The other stayed standard.
Families got eight home visits. Staff watched parents bathe, dress, or feed the child. They counted problem behaviors like hitting or screaming.
What they found
Both courses beat the wait-list. Kids showed far fewer problem behaviors. Parents felt more able and calm.
One year later most families kept the gains. The extra coping lessons did not add any benefit.
How this fits with other research
Hinton et al. (2017) later moved the same Triple P lessons online. Parents still saw child behavior drop, showing the method works without home visits.
Andrews et al. (2021) added ACT coping skills to parent training. They saw extra gains in parent stress. This seems to clash with Plant et al. (2007), where coping add-ons did nothing. The gap is delivery: Andrews used telehealth and ACT, while M used face-to-face Triple P modules. Different tools, different results.
Rollins et al. (2019) also used telehealth and found parent responsivity rose even when stress stayed high. Together the studies say: parent training itself lowers stress, but extra mindfulness or ACT layers may help only when delivered online.
Why it matters
You can give families the standard eight-week Stepping Stones course and expect strong, lasting drops in problem behavior. Skip costly coping add-ons unless you switch to tele-ACT. Save time, save money, still get results.
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02At a glance
03Original abstract
This study evaluated two variants of a behavioral parent training program known as Stepping Stones Triple P (SSTP) using 74 preschool-aged children with developmental disabilities. Families were randomly allocated to an enhanced parent training intervention that combined parenting skills and care-giving coping skills (SSTP-E), standard parent training intervention alone (SSTP-S) or waitlist control (WL) condition. At post-intervention, both programs were associated with lower levels of observed negative child behavior, reductions in the number of care-giving settings where children displayed problem behavior, and improved parental competence and satisfaction in the parenting role as compared with the waitlist condition. Gains attained at post-intervention were maintained at 1-year follow-up. Both interventions produced significant reductions in child problem behavior, with 67% of children in the SSTP-E and 77% of children in the SSTP-S showing clinically reliable change from pre-intervention to follow-up. Parents reported a high level of satisfaction with both interventions.
Research in developmental disabilities, 2007 · doi:10.1016/j.ridd.2006.02.009