Maladaptive adolescent behavior patterns often create escalating conflict with adults and peers, leading to poor long-term social trajectories. To address this, school-based behavior management often consists of contingent reinforcement for appropriate behavior, behavior reduction procedures, and placement in self-contained or alternative…

Early interventions aim at promoting a good mother-child relationship as basis for a good socio-emotional development, especially in high-risk populations, and at correcting already unfavorable patterns of interaction and are common today. Insecure attachment, both of the child and of the mother, has been identified as a risk factor for early…

Preschool-aged children with or at risk for attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) experience significant challenges with behavioral, social, and preacademic skills. Kern et al. (2007) examined 12-month intervention outcomes for 135 children, aged 3-5, with or at risk for ADHD. Two interventions, parent education alone and parent…

Using data ("n" = 3,790 with 2,119 in the 3-year-old cohort and 1,671 in the 4-year-old cohort) from 353 Head Start centers in the Head Start Impact Study, the only large-scale randomized experiment in Head Start history, this article examined the impact of Head Start on children's cognitive and parent-reported social-behavioral outcomes…

The purpose of the current study was to evaluate the turn-taking skills of children with and without disabilities who participated in a social communication intervention targeting peer-directed initiations and responses. Eight children met the selection criteria for inclusion in the study. A multiple baseline design across participants (dyads) was…

The 1998 reauthorization of Head Start called for a national evaluation of the Head Start program. The goal of Head Start is to improve the school readiness skills of low-income children. Yet characteristics of Head Start programs, such as their quality and the amount of time children spend in them may influence their effectiveness at achieving…

This study examined the effectiveness of a novel intervention called "socio-dramatic affective-relational intervention" (SDARI), intended to improve social skills among adolescents with Asperger syndrome and high functioning autism diagnoses. SDARI adapts dramatic training activities to focus on in vivo practice of areas of social skill…

Forty-six mothers at psychosocial risk who had undergone interaction treatment when their children were babies were studied with respect to experienced negative life events, social network, and behavior problems in children. One reference group comprising 45 nontreated mothers at psychosocial risk and one comprising 56 mothers without psychosocial…

This paper uses data from the Head Start Impact Study (HSIS), a nationally representative multisite randomized trial, to quantify variation in effects of Head Start during 2002-2003 on children's cognitive and socio-emotional outcomes relative to the effects of other local alternatives, including parent care. We find that (1) treatment and control…

This study explores the impact of a Head Start add-on programme, a matrix of services for parents which provides educational and vocational supports, on maternal depression and children's behaviour in Latino families. We hypothesise that after having completed training, parents who participated in the add-on programme would have lower levels of…

This pilot study investigated the impact of group activity play therapy (GAPT) on displaced orphans aged 10 to 12 years living in a large children's village in Uganda. Teachers and housemothers identified 60 preadolescents exhibiting clinical levels of internalizing and externalizing behavior problems. The participants' ethnicity was African and…

The article discuses a study conducted to investigate the impact of children with high-functioning autism (HFA) on parental stress, sibling adjustment, and family functioning; the study involves a sample of parents of 15 children with HFA and parents of 15 matched control children who completed questionnaires measuring the dependent variables. The…

Background: To evaluate the effect on problem behaviors of a universal school-based prevention curriculum of third grade students. Methods: Six regular classes in 1 elementary school were randomly assigned to an intervention (n = 208) or control (n = 209) group. A 13-session program was offered to students in the intervention group. The Achenbach…

This study examined whether the New Beginnings Program for divorced families led to improvements in youth's educational goals and job aspirations 6 years following participation and tested whether several parenting and youth variables mediated the program effects. Participants were 240 youth aged 9 to 12 years at the initial assessment, and data…

This study compared the effectiveness of a culturally modified version of Parent-Child Interaction Therapy (PCIT), called Guiando a Ninos Activos (GANA), to the effectiveness of standard PCIT and Treatment as Usual (TAU) for young Mexican American children with behavior problems. Fifty-eight Mexican American families whose 3- to 7-year-old child…