Adolescents are often resistant to interventions that reduce aggression in children. At the same time, they are developing stronger beliefs in the fixed nature of personal characteristics, particularly aggression. The present intervention addressed these beliefs. A randomized field experiment with a diverse sample of Grades 9 and 10 students (ages 14-16, n = 230) tested the impact of a 6-sessio...

Although few prevention studies have been designed to investigate the course of prevention effects over time, it seems that the effects on depressive symptoms increase from post-intervention to 6-month follow-up but then decrease with longer lags to follow-up. Furthermore, previous prevention studies have found differential intervention effects for boys and girls without testing possible explan...

We examined treatment effects over a 6- to 24-month period posttreatment for 3 different interventions for externalizing behavior problems in young Mexican American (MA) children: a culturally modified version of Parent-Child Interaction Therapy (PCIT), called Guiando a Niños Activos (GANA), standard PCIT, and treatment as usual (TAU). Fifty-eight MA families with a 3- to 7-year-old child with ...

OBJECTIVE This study examined differences between juvenile offenders with AD(H)D (n = 1,348), with both AD(H)D and conduct problems (n = 933), and without AD(H)D or conduct problems (n = 2,180) in recidivism rates, prevalence of risk and protective factors, and strength of associations between risk/protective factors and recidivism. METHOD Existing data were used, collected with the Washingto...

Conducted a pilot study to test the feasibility of a prevention program for promoting parenting in families of preschoolers at high risk for behavior problems. Risk status was based on a family history of antisocial behavior and residence in a low-income, urban community. Thirty preschoolers (ages 21/2 to 5) and their parents were randomly assigned to a 1-year, home- and clinic-based interventi...

Anxiety and conduct problems covary, yet studies have not explored the genetic and environmental origins of this association. We analyzed parent-reported anxiety and conduct problems in 6,783 pairs of twins at 2-, 3-, and 4-years of age. As anxiety and conduct problems were fairly stable across the three ages (average 1-year correlation was .53), ratings from all three were combined. The aggreg...

OBJECTIVE We examined the associations between romantic relationship status and alcohol use and problems in a large sample of first-year college students. METHOD Participants (n = 2,056) came from a longitudinal study of college students who answered questions about relationship status (single, in an exclusive relationship, or dating several people), alcohol use, and alcohol problems at two t...

Conduct problems in childhood often co-occur with symptoms of depression. This study explored whether the development of conduct problems becomes indirectly linked to depressive symptoms in a sample of 323 kindergarten children, followed over a period of 2 school years. Results showed that the development of conduct problems was indirectly linked to the development of depressive symptoms via ex...

A sample of 6- to 13-year-old clinic-referred (n = 136) and volunteer (n = 30) participants was investigated for a potential interaction between the quality of parenting that a child receives and callous-unemotional traits in the child for predicting conduct problems. Ineffective parenting was associated with conduct problems only in children without significant levels of callous (e.g. lack of ...

BACKGROUND This study examined relations among cumulative risk, nurturant and involved parenting, and behavior problems across early childhood. METHODS Cumulative risk, parenting, and behavior problems were measured in a sample of low-income toddlers participating in a family-centered program to prevent conduct problems. RESULTS Path analysis was utilized to examine longitudinal relations a...