Task-Based Grounding Program

Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center28 enrolled

Overview

The purpose of this study is to improve the availability of brief interventions to help children with defiant, aggressive and disruptive behaviors by creating a brief scalable intervention for parents delivered via telehealth. As phase 1 study, we are conducting a 2-arm pilot feasibility RCT in order the intervention, measures, and procedures to be used in a larger efficacy trial. The first arm will include a 3-session behavioral therapy treatment we call Task-Based Grounding and the second arm will be an enhanced treatment as usual comparison group.

The investigators have developed a 3-session psychosocial intervention for parents of children between 9-14 with disruptive behaviors. The intervention uses telehealth visits along with written and online resources to teach them parent management skills. To evaluate the acceptability of this intervention and the feasibility of our methods, the investigators will recruit 20 parent-child dyads to participate in this study. This is a mixed methods pilot feasibility RCT design. The investigators designed this study to test the acceptability of the intervention to parents and test the feasibility of our recruitment, retention, measurement, and delivery mechanisms for both the experimental and comparison conditions. The investigators will use a block randomization method to separate parent-child dyads into either treatment or comparison groups. The treatment condition involves 3 telehealth visits and a set of parenting resources. The enhanced treatment as usual condition will involve contact with a "care navigator" that will assess behavior problems in the child and help the parents find an appropriate referral to care in their community. Both groups will be followed for 10 weeks, provide outcome data, and participate in semi-structured qualitative interviews to accept acceptability.

Study Type

INTERVENTIONAL

Allocation

RANDOMIZED

Purpose

TREATMENT

Masking

SINGLE

Enrollment

Interventions

Task-Based GroundingBEHAVIORAL

Three 50 minutes sessions with an interventionist that includes 6 non-punitive components of treatment common in Behavioral Parent Trainings: Education on behavior change, positive one-on-one time between parents and their children, differential attending to positive and negative behaviors, effective praise, giving effective instructions, and using a point and reward system to encourage prosocial behaviors. These components are distilled into 5 skill modules and paired with Task-Based Grounding, which involves a brief restriction of privileges and provides children with the opportunity to end the restriction by completing a prosocial task.

Connected Care (Enhanced Treatment as usual)BEHAVIORAL

Two sessions with a facilitator. The facilitator does NOT provide any guidance to the parent on managing their child's behavior, but provides empathy and problem solving to help them find a resource that best fits their needs. It is particularly geared towards helping parents connect with Behavioral Parent Trainings to address the needs of children with oppositional, defiant, or aggressive behaviors.

Eligibility

Sex: ALLMin age: 9 Years

Medical Language ↔ Plain English

Inclusion Criteria: * Participating parent-child dyads must include a child between the ages of 9-14 years old and adult over the age of 18. * The child must have a Vanderbilt Oppositional Defiant Disorder score \>3 * The participating caregiver must be a legal guardian of participating child Exclusion Criteria (child refers to the primary participant's child) * Child ever been hospitalized for a psychiatric problem * Child ever attempted suicide or stated that they had a plan to attempt suicide within the past year. * Child ever engaged in self-harm behaviors * Child has significant legal history such as adjudicated of a crime or been in diversion * Child has ever been diagnosed with: Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, Intellectual Disability or Developmental Delay, Speech or Hearing Delay, Autism Spectrum Disorder, Schizophrenia or another psychotic disorder, A substance abuse disorder (or had serious concerns about substance use). * Parent can communicate in spoken English * Parent is under the age of 18.