Evaluation of Child Therapy and Caregiver Training in the Treatment of School Refusal

• NCJ Number: 195417
• Journal: Journal of the American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry Volume: 41 Issue: 6 Dated: June 2002 Pages: 687-695
• Author(s): David Heyne; Neville J. KIng; Bruce J. Tonge; Stephanie Rollings; Dawn Young; Melinda Pritchard; Thomas H. Ollendick
• Date Published: June 2002
• Length: 9 pages
• Grant Number(s): 940572
• Sponsoring Agency: National Health and Medical Research Council of Australia (NHMRC)
• Publication Format: Article
• Publication Type: Program/Project Evaluation
• Language: English
• Country: United States of America

Annotation

This Australian study examined the comparative effectiveness of child therapy, parent/teacher training, and the combination of child therapy and parent/teacher training in the treatment of children who refused to attend school.

Abstract

Subjects, who were between 7 and 14 years old, were drawn from the School Refusal Clinic in the Child and Adolescent Mental Health Service at Monash Medical Centre in Melbourne, Australia. The final cohort of 61 children consisted of 33 males and 28 females, with a mean age of 11.5 years. The majority of subjects (64 percent) had not attended school at all in the past 2 weeks, and a majority had one or more episodes of refusing to attend school in previous years. The children and their teachers/parents were randomly assigned to a child therapy program, a parent and teacher training program, or a combination of the two. Children were assessed before and after treatment and at a 4.5-month follow-up by means of attendance records, self-reports of emotional distress and self-efficacy, parent and teacher reports of emotional distress, and clinician ratings of overall functioning. The evaluation found statistically and clinically significant pretreatment-posttreatment change for each group. Immediately after treatment, child therapy appeared to be the least effective in increasing school attendance. By follow-up, the attendance and adjustment of those in the child therapy group equaled that of children whose parents and teachers were involved in treatment, whether on their own (parent/teacher training) or together with their children (combined child therapy and parent/teacher training). The study concluded that contrary to expectations, combined child therapy and parent/teacher training did not produce better outcomes at posttreatment or follow-up. The less time-consuming options of working with the child or caregivers alone can be just as effective and in some cases perhaps more effective. 3 tables and 28 references