"Come play with me! I promise to behave!" : a study on the effectiveness of a play intervention on difficult behaviors

Abstract

Objective—Although efficacious interventions exist for internalizing and externalizing behaviors in children, a majority of families in need of services do not receive them in a timely manner. To address problems of treatment access, innovatively delivered self-help interventions are needed. This randomized control trial investigated the relative efficacy of the Plaily app in improving the effects of a play intervention against an active control. Methods—One hundred and fourteen Hong Kong parents with children four to ten years old were randomized to intervention or active control group. Psycho-education was provided through pre-recorded videos. In addition to the videos, the intervention group received the Plaily app, which contained a database of parent-child interactive play ideas with written and video descriptions. Parents completed standardized measures of children's internalizing and externalizing problems using the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (Goodman, 1997; 2010) at treatment and posttreatment. Results—Parents in both intervention and active control reported significant improvements from pre-intervention to postintervention in their children's total difficult problems and externalizing problems, but not in internalizing problems. There were no interactions between time and intervention format. Conclusions— Implications for future study discussed.