| Summary: | Factors were examined that influence mother-child interactions and the choices
that mothers make in deciding how to best respond to their children's behavior. A study
was conducted employing a naturalistic think aloud method to assess mothers'
attributions. The Study included 45 mothers of non-problem sons and 45 mothers of sons
with Attention Deficit Hyperactive Disorder (ADHD). Sons ranged from 9 to 13 years of
age. Mothers' instructed their sons to perform four separate task behaviors. Each mother
was instructed to vocalize her thoughts as she watched her son engage in the task. At task
completion, the mother was given an opportunity to provide feedback to her child
regarding his task behavior. Each mother's think aloud comments were coded for
descriptions of child behaviour and attributions regarding the cause of the child's
behavior. In addition, the mothers' feedback comments were coded for quality of praise
(Positive, Qualified, Criticism). In comparison to mothers of nonproblem sons, mothers
of sons with ADHD were more likely to attribute child success to external factors.
Moreover, mothers of sons with ADHD were generally more likely than mothers of
nonproblem sons to attribute child failure to factors internal to the child. Hierarchical
regressions were performed to examine the contributions of mothers' attributions to
predicting feedback to the child above and beyond the contributions from group
membership, descriptions of child behaviour and demographic variables. Results indicate
that internal controllable stable attributions for success predict positive feedback
Discussion of results include limitations of method and possible improvements for future
studies.
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