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Abstract
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This study examined the longer term preventive effects of a school-based intervention with boys referred by classroom teachers as highly aggressive and disruptive. Three years after intervention, boys who had received an anger coping (AC) program were compared with a group of untreated boys. The AC boys had lower rates of drug and alcohol involvement and had higher levels of self-esteem and social problem-solving skills. The AC boys were not significantly different from previously nonaggressive boys on these variables at follow-up. Although the overall intervention did not have longer term effects on delinquency rates or classroom behavior, a subset of boys who also received booster sessions did display maintenance of certain classroom behavior improvement. Implications for intensification of cognitive-behavioral interventions are discussed.
VioLit summary:
OBJECTIVE:
This study by Lochman examined the long-term effects of cognitive-behavioral therapy on aggressive boys.
METHODOLOGY:
This research was quasi-experimental in design and studied the effects of an anger-management program used with aggressive boys. The focus of the program was to teach the boys to identify common social and anger-arousing problems and different techniques for solving them through discussions and role playing. This program consisted of weekly group meetings lasting 45-60 minutes for 4-5 months with a total of 12-18 sessions attended by each boy participating in the program.
The subjects used in this study were 145 boys who were identified as aggressive and nonaggressive by teacher and peer ratings in a previous study conducted by the author. The rating system consisted of teachers and students identifying three boys in their fourth, fifth or sixth grade class who they believed fought the most. The researchers placed each of the 145 boys into one of three groups: anger-coping, untreated aggressive, and nonaggressive. The 31 boys in the anger-coping group were identified as aggressive by peer ratings and received the anger-coping training. A subset of 12 boys from this group also received a "booster intervention" one year after completing the initial treatment program which consisted of six weekly group sessions (five of which included parents) that followed the same structure as the initial treatment. The 52 untreated aggressive boys were also identified as aggressive by teachers and peers, but these boys did not go through the treatment program. The 62 nonaggressive boys were those rated as aggressive by less than 7% of their peers. The nonaggressive boys did not receive anger-coping training.
The present study consisted of a follow-up of the three groups of boys 2 1/2 to 3 years after the initial intervention. The author was interested in three different classes of variables: preventative outcome variables, outcome moderator variables, and behavioral variables. The preventative outcome variables were measured through structured interviews with the boys regarding such issues as substance abuse, delinquent behavior, and psychopathology. The questions for the interview were drawn from the National Youth Survey which has demonstrated adequate reliability and validity. Outcome moderator variables included variables that measured self-esteem and problem-solving and were assessed using two self-administered questionnaires, the Coopersmith Self-Esteem Inventory (CSI) and the Problem-Solving Measure for Conflict (PSM-C) which gave 6 hypothetical stories describing social problems and different possible solutions for the subjects to choose from. Both the CSI and the PSM-C were found to display adequate reliability and validity in previous studies (PSM-C kappa= .80). The behavioral variables were measured with the Behavior Observation Schedule for Pupils and Teachers which yields time-series ratings in 10-second intervals for subjects' classroom behavior. The researcher in this study was particularly interested in two types of classroom behavior: passive (noninteractive) off-task behavior and disruptive-aggressive off-task behavior. Each child was observed for 30 minutes and interrater agreement was found to yield a kappa coefficient of .80 for passive off-task observations and .83 for aggressive-disruptive off-task. Data in this study were analyzed using multivariate analyses of covariance.
FINDINGS/DISCUSSION:
The author found that the cognitive-behavioral intervention had several long-term effects. The most significant area of impact was in the area of substance use; the boys who had received the anger-treatment intervention three years previously had levels of substance use that were significantly lower than their aggressive peers who did not receive treatment and about the same level as their nonaggressive peers. The author concluded from this finding that the aggressive boys who received treatment were now as low risk as the nonaggressive boys in terms of this problem behavior. The intervention did not, however, "produce markedly lower rates of delinquency than the level displayed by the untreated boys" (p 430). It was found that the anger-coping boys had more self-esteem than the aggressive boys and contributed fewer irrelevant solutions to the vignettes about social problems, leading the author to conclude that the treated boys had learned to have more "means-end" thinking. The treatment was found to have no effect on classroom behavior with the exception of the group receiving the "booster intervention" who had significantly lower levels of passive off-task behavior. The author argued that changes in classroom behavior can occur when interventions are long-lasting and intensive. The author concluded that untreated aggressive behavior in boys can lead to a variety of problems in adolescents including substance use and delinquency.
AUTHOR'S RECOMMENDATIONS:
The author suggested that in order for the effects of intervention to be more long-term, several things must occur: the treatment must be longer, the treatment must focus more on goals and expectations that influence social cognition, and family members and significant others of the boys must also receive treatment.
(CSPV Abstract - Copyright © 1992-2007 by the Center for the Study and Prevention of Violence, Institute of Behavioral Science, Regents of the University of Colorado)
Late Childhood
Child Aggression
Child Male
Child Treatment
Cognitive Behavioral Treatment
Cognitive Behavioral Intervention
Male Aggression
Treatment Effectiveness
Treatment Outcome
Cognitive Therapy
Long-Term Effects
Follow-Up Studies
Language: en |