Session: Preventing Childhood Problem Behavior in School Settings: Findings from Three Controlled Investigations


Saturday, 14 January 2006: 10:00 AM-11:45 AM

Preventing Childhood Problem Behavior in School Settings: Findings from Three Controlled Investigations

Organizer:	Jeffrey M. Jenson, PhD, University of Denver
		Effects of the Youth Matters Curriculum on Bullying and Other Aggressive Behaviors in Elementary School Students Jeffrey M. Jenson, PhD, William A. Dieterich, PhD, Elizabeth K. Anthony, MSW
		Social Information-Processing Skills Training to Promote Social Competence and Prevent Aggressive Behavior in the Third Grade Mark W. Fraser, PhD, Mary Terzian, MSW, Shenyang Guo, PhD, Maeda J. Galinsky, PhD, Roderick A. Rose, MS, Steven H. Day, MS
		Raising Healthy Children: Effects of a Longitudinal Social Development Intervention Richard F. Catalano, PhD, Kevin Haggerty, MSW, Tracy Harachi, PhD, James J. Mazza, PhD, Charles N.B. Fleming, MA, Ric Brown, PhD
Abstract Text: Child and adolescent conduct problems are frequent topics of discussion and debate in the nation's public schools. Students who engage in antisocial behaviors such as bullying, delinquency, and drug use consume a disproportionate share of educational resources and pose significant intervention challenges to educators and other practitioners. These challenges are exacerbated by public policies that are subject to frequent shifts in political, philosophical, and theoretical beliefs about the best way to prevent youth problems at school. The social costs and individual consequences of ineffective interventions and failed policies are staggering. Classroom teachers and school administrators have used a host of social interventions to prevent and treat disruptive behavior among children and youth in the past three decades. Early efforts concentrated on providing information to students about the risks inherent in problem behavior and offered alternative programs for youth at greatest risk for involvement in antisocial conduct. These efforts yielded mixed results in preventing or delaying the onset of behaviors such as bullying, delinquency, and drug use. In recent years, knowledge of the risk and protective factors associated with problem behaviors has been used to increase the efficacy of many school-based prevention programs. Reviews of recent school-based prevention studies indicate that empirically-based and theoretically-sound curricula can prevent or delay the onset of child and adolescent problems. However, a majority of public school districts continue to implement untested or ineffective prevention strategies. In addition, many investigators and evaluation teams fail to use research designs and analytic tools of sufficient rigor to reliably assess the effects of prevention curricula on child and adolescent behavior. Authors in this symposium present findings from three randomized prevention trials in public school settings that address these shortcomings. Each investigation uses a structured, manualized intervention to teach elementary school students a range of social, cognitive, and behavioral skills deemed necessary to prevent involvement in antisocial behavior. Each study employs principles of random assignment, longitudinal data collection, and multivariate modeling to examine the effects of intervention over time. Results from each project are presented and implications for the design and implementation of school-based prevention trials are discussed.

See more of Symposium

See more of Meeting the Challenge: Research In and With Diverse Communities (January 12 - 15, 2006)