Preventing disruptive behavior in early elementary schoolchildren: impact of a universal classroom-based preventive intervention

Knowledge about the development of children with disruptive behaviors, leading to disruptive disorders and related poor outcomes, guides prevention research in the development and evaluation of preventive interventions. The overview of effective interventions in this chapter showed that several effective intervention strategies are available to intervene in the development of disruptive behavior. Most of the development and evidence for effective prevention programs is based on studied in the USA. Consequently, these prevention programs are developed for use in the USA. It was therefore decided to develop a universal, classroom based preventive intervention for use in the Netherlands and determine the impact of this intervention. The main purpose of the present study was to examine the impact of Good Behavior Game (GBG; Barrish et aL, 1969; Dolan et aL, 1989) on the development of disruptive behaviors in young elementary schoolchildren in the Netherlands. The GBG a universal, classroom based preventive intervention program. In addition, the purpose was to study risk factors in the child, familial and parenting domain that predict whether children will or will not respond to the intervention. The secondary purpose of this study was to further our knowledge about developmental psychopathology. This was done by studying the characteristics of groups of children with similar patterns of disruptive behaviors and by studying developmental trajectories of children's aggression, the characteristics at onset as well as the consequences for following a specific developmental trajectory

Testing links between childhood positive peer relations and externalizing outcomes through a randomized controlled intervention study

In this study, the authors used a randomized controlled trial to explore the link between having positive peer relations and externalizing outcomes in 758 children followed from kindergarten to the end of 2nd grade. Children were randomly assigned to the Good Behavior Game (GBG), a universal classroombased preventive intervention, or a control condition. Children’s acceptance by peers, their number of mutual friends, and their proximity to others were assessed annually through peer ratings. Externalizing behavior was annually rated by teachers. Reductions in children’s externalizing behavior and improvements in positive peer relations were found among GBG children, as compared with control-group children. Reductions in externalizing behavior appeared to be partly mediated by the improvements in peer acceptance. This mediating role of peer acceptance was found for boys only. The results suggest that positive peer relations are not just markers, but they are environmental mediators of boys’ externalizing behavior development. Implications for research and prevention are discussed

Understanding mechanisms of change in the development of antisocial behavior: The impact of a universal intervention

The association between the development of antisocial behavior, affiliation with deviant friends, and peer rejection was tested with a preventive intervention; 664 boys and girls were randomly assigned to a universal classroom-based intervention targeting disruptive behavior or a control condition. Peer nominations of antisocial behavior, friends' antisocial behavior, and peer rejection were assessed annually for 4 years. A high, a moderate, and a stable low antisocial behavior trajectory were identified. Large reductions in antisocial behavior were found among intervention children who followed the high trajectory. These reductions coincided with affiliations with nondeviant peers and with decreases in peer rejection. The affiliation between deviant and nondeviant peers was initiated by nondeviant children. The results support a causal role of deviant friends and peer rejection in the development of antisocial behavior. The implications for our understanding of the mechanisms leading to reductions in antisocial behavior are discussed

Longitudinal links between childhood peer acceptance and the neural correlates of sharing

Pathways through Adolescenc

Longitudinal links between childhood peer acceptance and the neural correlates of sharing

Childhood peer acceptance is associated with high levels of prosocial behavior and advanced perspective taking skills. Yet, the neurobiological mechanisms underlying these associations have not been studied. This functional magnetic resonance imaging study examined the neural correlates of sharing decisions in a group of adolescents who had a stable accepted status (n = 27) and a group who had a chronic rejected status (n = 19) across six elementary school grades. Both groups of adolescents played three allocation games in which they could share money with strangers with varying costs and profits to them and the other person. Stably accepted adolescents were more likely to share their money with unknown others than chronically rejected adolescents when sharing was not costly. Neuroimaging analyses showed that stably accepted adolescents, compared to chronically rejected adolescents, exhibited higher levels of activation in the temporo-parietal junction, posterior superior temporal sulcus, temporal pole, pre-supplementary motor area, and anterior insula during costly sharing decisions. These findings demonstrate that stable peer acceptance across childhood is associated with heightened activity in brain regions previously linked to perspective taking and the detection of social norm violations during adolescence, and thereby provide insight into processes underlying the widely established links between peer acceptance and prosocial behavior