Stuart R B, Tripodi T, Jayaratne S, Camburn D
J Abnorm Child Psychol. 1976;4(3):243-61. doi: 10.1007/BF00917762.
One hundred and two predelinquent adolescents were randomly assigned to one of two conditions: an experimental condition in which behavioral contracting services were offered both at home and in school or a control condition in which clients were told that they could not be accomodated by project therapists and were informed about the possibility of their receiving treatment in other programs in the community. Most of those who were assigned to the control condition did not avail themselves of services in these other programs. Results indicate that, relative to the controls, the behaviorally treated youth scored small but statistically significant improvement relative to the controls on five measures: ratings of school behavior by the person who originally referred them for service, by their teachers, by their mothers, and by their fathers, and ratings of their parent-child interactions as measured by their mothers. Gains were also reported in mother's ratings of their children's behavior at home. The failure of significant gains to be made in two measures of school performance--grades and attendance--is explained by the failure of the treatment techniques to over-come an age-related deterioration in these areas found among most children in the participating schools. The failure of fathers to find significant improvement in their relationships with the referred adolescents is viewed as a consequence of unanticipated changes in the intrafamilial balance of power resulting from contracting services. Finally, a subsidiary analysis showed that the contracting service appeared to offer the greatest gain to the demographically defined sub-groups of youths who are among the population-at-risk in many juvenile courts.
102名有犯罪倾向的青少年被随机分配到两种情况之一：一种是实验情况，即在家庭和学校都提供行为契约服务；另一种是对照情况，即告知客户项目治疗师无法为他们提供服务，并告知他们有可能在社区的其他项目中接受治疗。大多数被分配到对照情况的人没有利用这些其他项目中的服务。结果表明，与对照组相比，接受行为治疗的青少年在五项指标上相对于对照组有小幅度但在统计学上显著的改善：最初将他们转介来接受服务的人、他们的教师、他们的母亲和父亲对他们学校行为的评分，以及他们母亲所衡量的亲子互动评分。母亲对孩子在家中行为的评分也有提高。在学业成绩的两项指标——成绩和出勤率——上没有取得显著进步，原因是治疗技术未能克服参与学校中大多数儿童在这些方面与年龄相关的恶化情况。父亲们未能在与被转介的青少年的关系中发现显著改善，这被视为契约服务导致家庭内部权力平衡意外变化的结果。最后，一项辅助分析表明，契约服务似乎对许多少年法庭中处于危险人群的人口统计学定义的青少年亚组带来了最大的收益。
