Yeah...no kidding. You can't adequately research this topic. Not with any kind of scientific validity. It's all subjective. The variables involved with figuring out whether time-outs are "detrimental" would be astronomical. The cost alone would be prohibitive.

There's not a way to get a control group. Because you would have to study the parents of those children as well. This is all science through interview...which is entirely subjective. It would be entirely plausible to get research to "show" the exact opposite.

Quoting statistics and research in this area is completely meaningless, because there is no way to prove that there are actual corrolations. In cases such as this, people prove what they set out to prove...nothing more. In my own personal research program...we'll call them subjects, A, B, and C. My methods are working fine, (time-outs, lectures, and the occasional swat) and I am comfortable with them. My kids are adorable, loved, and they know that they are the center of my universe.