A Comparison of the Effectiveness of the Mindfulness Skills Training for Children with Oppositional Defiant and Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy on the Child-Teacher Interactions

Oppositional defiant disorder is one of the most common diagnoses of mental health disorders in childhood, which is a recurrent pattern of negative caring behaviors, disobedience, rebellion, and hostility toward the power holder. It has a profound impact on the individual, the family, the school and the community. Hence, the protocol for training the mindfulness skills of children with oppositional defiant disorder was developed to improve the child's interaction with the teacher. The purpose of this study was to compare the effectiveness of mindfulness training for children with oppositional defiant disorder and cognitive-behavioral therapy on the child-teacher interactions.

The research method was a semi-experimental pretest-posttest and follow-up with a control group. Sixty 8 to 12-year-old oppositional defiant children were selected by available sampling and were randomly assigned into two experimental groups (interventional technique: mindfulness skills training and cognitive-behavioral therapy) and a control group. Measurement tools consisted of a Teacher-Student Relationship Questionnaire and Questionnaire CSI-4.

The results of the analysis of variance with repeated measures indicated that mindfulness training and cognitive-behavioral therapy had significant effects on enhancing the child interactions with the teacher. Studies have also showed a significant difference between the increasing child-teacher interaction with mindfulness training and cognitive-behavioral therapy ((P =0.001).

The rise of child-teacher interactions in the cognitive-behavioral group is greater than the increase in the child-teacher interactions in the group with mindfulness training.