Childrens and parents cognitions about family-interaction - an evaluation of video-mediated recall and thought listing procedures in the assessment of conduct-disordered children

Evaluated two procedures for assessing the cognitive constructions of family interactions of conduct-disordered children and their mothers. Video-mediated recall (VR) uses videotaped replays of family interaction as a cue to elicit cognitions about the interaction; thought listing (TL) involves writing down cognitions about the interaction. Twenty-five conduct-disordered children and 17 nonproblem children and their parents participated in the study. Cognitions were coded into self-referent positive, self-referent negative, family-referent positive, family-referent negative, other-referent positive, and other-referent negative. There was a significant effect of clinical status on cognitions using the VR measure for both children and parents, but not using the TL method As hypothesized, conduct-disordered children on the VR method had higher levels of self-referent negative cognitions, lower levels of self-referent positive cognitions, and lower levels of family-referent positive cognitions than comparison children.