JULY 13 - JULY 19, 2005
NEWS
THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
11
RESEARCH
Study suggest kids want discipline
BY Liz NARTOWICZ
lnartowicz@kansan.com
KANSAN STAFF WRITER
A study by a University of Kansas researcher suggests punishment is the preferred and most effective treatment for troubled children.
Gregory Hanley, assistant professor of applied behavioral science, conducted a study on problem-behavior prevention for children with severe mental illnesses.
Hanley conducted his study at Johns Hopkins University and explored the children's preferences for educational formats.
Hanley worked with two children throughout his study and determined that children not only needed, but also wanted a form of punishment to correct their aggressive behavior.
The subjects were 5-year-old Jay and 8-year-old Betty. These children suffered from extreme mental retardation and were chosen for the study because of their aggressive
nature, Hanley said. Besides injuring others, including parents and other children, Betty and Jay inflicted pain on themselves.
"These children would blind themselves from head banging," Hanley said.
Both children had been hospitalized from self-injuries.
Hanley said because the children could not communicate accurately, they relied on acting out aggressively to receive attention and convey their needs.
Hanley began his research to discover an effective means for preventing such behavior in special needs children in 1996.
In order to find the most effective means, Hanley provided the children with options of how they would like researchers and parents to respond to their behavior. Hanley narrowed the options down to three for the children.
Responses included sole communication that expressed disapproval of the behavior, communication accompanied
by a punishment and punishment alone. Parents chose from a list which punishment their child would receive. Jay's punishment was for researchers to hold his hands in his lap for 30 seconds. Betty's was hand restraint along with covering of the eves.
These types of punishments were time out punishments, Hanley said. They were a temporary removal from a desired environment.
Response options were put in the form of color-coded switches for the children to choose from. It took a while for the children to comprehend the meaning behind the switches, but they ultimately did. Hanley said.
What Hanley found through his study was that the children preferred the communication paired with punishment option.
"People wrongly assume people would not prefer punishment," Hanley said. "This study challenges that assumption."
The debate about whether punishment is a preferred and effective treatment for problem behavior has been around since the '70s, said Wayne Sailor, associate director for the Beach Center on Disability located inside Haworth Hall.
Within the last three decades, Sailor said all available evidence pointed in the other direction. Punishment is neither preferred nor effective. Sailor said.
"Punishment just makes kids angry." Sailor said.
Sailor said evidence suggested punishment suppressed the problem behavior in the short term but did not solve the problem. Sailor said what actually worked was the Positive Behavior Support system.
The system teaches parents and caretakers to discover what function the behavior serves the child, and then provide support to modify the behavior.
Sailor said what support authorities offered children to modify problem behavior depended on the individual, settings and conditions. Sailor said one could deal with problem behavior better through building self-esteem rather than through a physical punishment.
Hanley said he realized society would be hesitant to the idea of using, or talking about, punishment. He said in the past, people abused and overused punishment, thus making the pendulum swing the other way. Hanley said society was at a point now to find a middle road.
As for the children, who cannot comprehend the role of punishment within a society, Hanley said he thought they preferred punishment because of permissive parenting. Permissive parenting is parenting without setting limits, Hanley said.
"Children want parents to parent," Hanley said. "Parents should not be afraid to discipline these children."
Hanley's research was published in the Spring 2005 edition of the Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis.
— Edited by Erin M. Droste