Some years ago we edited a general casebook on behavior therapy that was
well received. However, those professors who used the book as an adjunct
text in child behavior therapy courses were concerned that only 9 of the
26 chapters dealt with the clinical application of behavioral prin-
ciples to children. Their contention was that a specific casebook on the
topic was very much warranted. In considering their comments we took a
closer look at the child behavior therapy area and were struck with how
diverse it was, how it had expanded, and how it had matured over the
last three decades. Given this apparent gap in the literature, we
decided to devote an entire casebook to both the standard and the more
innovative clinical applications to the behavioral problems presented by
children. The resulting book, containing 28 chapters, is divided into
two parts. In the first part, in a chapter entitled "How the Field Has
Moved On," we briefly trace the historical roots of child behavior
therapy, detail the relationship of psychiatric diagnosis and behavioral
assessment, and con- sider the importance of developmental norms,
psychological testing, ef- forts at prevention, and behavioral medicine.
The bulk of this book, of course, appears in the 27 cases presented by
our respective experts. Each of the treatment cases is presented in
identical format for pur- poses of clarity, consistency, and
comparability.