Initial trials involving multicomponent prevention programs show promise (e.g., Pepler, King, Craig, Byrd, & Bream, 1995 Walker, Stiller, Severson, Feil, & Golly, 1998).
The most effective interventions for children with conduct problem behaviors typically have multiple components that address parent and youth processes to reduce the likelihood of later problems ( Brestan & Eyberg, 1998). Furthermore, recognizing the concurrent difficulties that emerge and interact with problem behaviors over time, such as peer rejection and academic failure, preventive interventions need to influence the multiple causes and the chronic nature of the maladaptive developmental processes ( CPPRG, 1992). These prevention programs should begin early enough to alter the early stages of the developmental trajectory and to avoid the spiral of escalating and more severe behavioral problems over time. Thus, it is important to assess serious conduct problem outcomes across multiple years.īecause of their considerable influence on serious adolescent antisocial and criminal behavior, prevention programs are particularly needed to target early-starting conduct problem youth ( CPPRG, in press).
Prior research suggests that teacher and parent ratings of children’s behavior problems at elementary-school entry have optimal sensitivity and specificity as screening indexes when they predict to multiple time-point behavioral problem outcomes in the next year, rather than to single time-point outcomes ( Lochman & CPPRG, 1995), Similarly, when this longitudinal sample was followed into later years, the teacher and parent screening scores proved most sensitive in predicting problems in the home and school setting when the externalizing behavior outcomes were assessed across multiple years in the fourth and fifth grades ( Hill et al., in press). Because antisocial behavior at a single point is less stable than outcomes observed across multiple time-points ( Lahey, Loeber, Burke, Rathouz, & McBurnett, 2002), research has begun to explore risk prediction utilizing indexes of problem behavior outcomes evident at one of several time-point outcomes. Although risk-prediction research indicates that approximately 50% of these children do not progress to severe antisocial behavior (e.g., represent false positives in risk prediction), most seriously antisocial adolescents begin with an early starter trajectory (Hill, Lochman, Coie, Greenberg, & Conduct Problems Prevention Research Group, in press Loeber, Wung, & Keenan, 1993).
“Early starters” (also described as “life-course persistent”) begin their serious externalizing behavior problems as early as entry into elementary school ( Moffitt, 1993 Patterson, Reid, & Dishion, 1992). The stage is set to examine potential prevention effects on these youths’ serious antisocial behaviors during adolescence.Ī key characteristic of childhood-onset conduct problems is that they can lead to a subsequent extended and chronic pattern of antisocial behavior across a substantial period of development ( Coie, Terry, Lenox, Lochman, & Hyman, 1995). This evaluation indicates that Fast Track has continued to influence certain key areas of children’s adjustment throughout the elementary school years, reducing children’s likelihood of emerging as cases with problems in their social, peer, or home functioning. There was no evidence of intervention impact on children’s serious problems in the school setting at Grades 4 and 5. Fast Track did have a significant but modest influence on children’s rates of social competence and social cognition problems, problems with involvement with deviant peers, and conduct problems in the home and community, compared to children in the control condition. This study addresses the important question of whether this intervention reduces cases of serious problems that can occur during the 4th- and 5th-grade years. Prior research has shown that Fast Track produces small positive effect sizes on children’s social and behavioral outcomes at the end of 1st and 3rd grades in comparison to control children. This study examines the effects of the Fast Track program, which is a multicomponent, intensive intervention for children with early-onset conduct problems and continues from 1st grade through high school.
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