What is this article about?

The study aims to investigate factors and effect of children’s (non-)compliance. There is no doubt about the importance of a certain amount of compliance among children, which has also been reported by developmental psychologists. Hereby, the age groups plays a role since children with a regular cognitive, linguistics and motor development can be expected to show compliance at the age of four. Compliance is seen as an important factor in socialization of children. Compliance covers a broader spectrum than children following their parent’s direct instructions. In most studies is the ability to perform a task not measured, but the children’s willingness and motivation.

Continued non-compliance in a child has been embraced as a risk factor for psychopathy, defined by developmental symptoms. The diagnosis of continued non-compliance often relies on the parents’ report, due to the difficulties to observe a 6-month old child. As with every diagnosis, it has to be dealt with caution, since a diagnosis can influence care service and reimbursement.

In the study of this article, the developmental transition of (non-) compliance at home was investigated.

How was the study conducted?

For the study, 40 families with children who met the inclusion criteria were recruited and equally divided into four age groups (2.0-2.9 years, 3.0-3.9 years, 4.0-4.9 years and 5.0-5.9 years). Children with a diagnosis of any sorts were excluded. The parents had to fill out the Aggression Behaviour Subscale. Subsequently, 4 families were excluded of this study.

In the beginning, all parents had to complete the Child Behaviour Checklist. Parents participated in Behaviour Record Card training in a seperate room from their children. The following two weeks, the parents were required to record any noncompliance of their children with help of the Behaviour Record Card.

After the 2-week period, the cards were returned to the researcher and an accuracy test was conducted. During this test, the parents were shown videos of a scripted parent-child interaction. The participants were asked to fill out their cards according to how they would rate the behaviour of the child in the video.

What were the results of the study?

Results of this study showed that an average of non-compliance did not occur among children until the age of 5. This finding is consistent with other developmental psychological studies, finding reduction in non-compliance after the age of 4.

Analyzing the Behaviour Record Card together with occurring symptoms classified under Oppositional Defiant Disorder (ODD), revealed that 37 out of 40 children showed symptoms of symptomatic level of non-compliance, according to the DSM 5. This is surprising since diagnosed children and children with high scores of aggression were excluded from this study.

Analyzing these results is difficult since no norm exists to compare the results to. Reported results rely mostly on parental rating and reports. A common used alternative is to use measurements assessing aggression level, but these measurements only provide a poor proxy of noncompliance.

Overall, the researchers of this article state that a certain level of noncompliance between the age of 2 and 6 is normal and part of children’s socialization process. However, more research is needed in this field.