Forty-five overweight children aged 6 to 13 were randomly assigned to one of four conditions: a behavioural programme occurring on a rapid schedule, the same behavioural programme presented on a schedule of gradually decreasing frequency, a non-specific control procedure and a waiting list control group. Experimental procedures required subjects to attend eight sessions, accompanied by a parent. The behavioural approach was found to lead to significantly greater reductions in obese status as measured by absolute weight loss and percentage overweight for age, sex and height, in comparison to both the non-specific control procedure and the waiting list group during treatment. This difference was maintained at the 11 week follow-up. Comparison between the rapid and gradual scheduling of behavioural sessions revealed little difference in outcome in the long term, other than effects which reflected differences in duration since the onset of treatment. Skinfold measures were found to be less sensitive to change, with differences between groups being evident only in the longer term assessments.

This paper illustrates the use of a single case design and analysis based upon assignment rather than sampling theory in a series of case studies of young and handicapped children with sleeping difficulties. The strengths and limitations of the design are discussed.

One of the major problems facing behaviour therapy has been the relative lack of success in bringing about lasting change in complex environments. The difficulty in assessing and understanding these failures may well be due to an unnecessarily narrow view of change in terms of small units of behaviour and short time-scales. In contrast, if one takes a “setting events” perspective, this might generate more explanatory hypotheses by focusing on larger behavioural units and longer time-scales. This exploratory study adopted such a perspective in order to consider staff opinions about the maintenance and generalization of an innovative behavioural programme in psychiatric rehabilitation. The results of a structured interview with a small group (n = 11) of multidisciplinary staff indicated the potential value of this perspective: factors traditionally regarded as obstructing innovation (such as not enough time, staff or facilities) were not in fact seen as problematic. On the contrary, factors which were more readily manipulable (such as feedback, nursing officer support and in-service training) were regarded as facilitating planned change. The implications of these findings and this perspective for sustained organizational development are discussed.

Forty primary nocturnally enuretic children were randomly assigned to one of four experimental conditions over a ten week period. These were (a) standard Pad-and-Buzzer Training (PBT), (b) Stop—Start Training (SST), involving practice in interrupting the flow of urine during micturition, (c) Dry Bed Training (DBT) and (d) Waiting List Control (WLC). Numbers of dry nights were assessed during a 14 days pre-treatment baseline period, and again during 14 days at the end of treatment and at 12 weeks follow-up. At the end of treatment the proportions of subjects in each condition achieving 14 consecutive dry nights were: PBT 44.4%, SST 16.6%, DBT 50% and WLC 0%. Each of the three treatments produced more dry nights than the WLC, but did not significantly differ from one another. The results were discussed in terms of their generalizability and in the context of superior results previously reported for DBT.

Several previous studies have reported that cognitive/behavioural treatments have been relatively ineffective for chronic, drug-resistant depressed patients. In the present report, six chronic, drug-resistant depressed patients were treated with an integrated program consisting of cognitive/behavioural treatment, pharmacotherapy, and short term hospitalization. The obtained improvement rates were substantially better than previous studies. Potential explanations for these findings are discussed.

Three non-verbal, autistic boys of 9, 12 and 16 years served as subjects in two experiments and a nurse play-therapist acted as the agent. The first experiment compared the effects upon a motor coordination task of each subject's preferred sensory reinforcer with those of the sensory reinforcer preferred by the other two subjects. On-task performances were maintained by prompting and by contingent presentation of each reinforcer in a multiple-baseline design across subjects. All subjects showed higher levels of on-task performance for their preferred sensory activity. In the second experiment a multielement-baseline design compared the effects of the preferred sensory reinforcer with those of a preferred edible reinforcer. All subjects showed higher levels of on-task performance for their preferred sensory activity. Inter-observer reliability remained above 90%. A role for sensory reinforcement in training autistic children is suggested.

Research into social skills training has, in common with much other contemporary educational psychology practice, been beset by the problem of how best to evaluate effectiveness. Alongside the movement towards more behaviourally inclined approaches has grown a dissatisfaction with the traditional methods of evaluting effectiveness. If we recognize behaviour per se as being the appropriate level for intervention, whether in relation to academic skills teaching, classroom management, social skills training or whatever, then it follows that effectiveness can only logically be assessed in terms of measurable changes in observed behaviour. Evaluation methodology has tended to lag behind interventional methodology, however, so that it has not been uncommon to see behavioural work assessed in terms of changes in attitude and/or knowledge. On occasion evaluation is not even attempted and behaviour change is assumed to generalize outside the specific confines of the intervention situation.