School-based interventions involving teacher and/or child training have been shown to benefit teacher practices and to prevent conduct
problems and improve children?s social and emotional competence in developed countries; however, we are aware of no reports from a
developing country.We conducted a pilot study of the Incredible Years Teacher Training programme and a curriculum unit on social and
emotional skills based on concepts and activities drawn from the Incredible Years Dina Dinosaur Classroom Curriculum to determine if
this approach is appropriate for use with Jamaican pre-school teachers and children.
This study reports on analysis of official record data gathered on 237 primary teachers enrolled in the Incredible Years Teacher (IYT) programme during 2010-2011. IYT is a group based programme that provides teachers with training in skills to manage disruptive classroom behaviours. Before and after comparisons showed that after the provision of IYT teachers reported significant (p < 0.001) increases in the frequency of use and usefulness of positive behaviour management strategies. In addition there were generally high levels of teacher satisfaction with various aspects of the programme including: the overall programme; teaching strategies used in the course; specific teaching techniques; and workshop leaders. These findings provide preliminary evidence of the efficacy of IYT and teacher satisfaction with the programme. It is suggested that further evaluations of the programme are conducted using a randomised wait list design.
In the UK between three and seven percent of children aged five to 15 years meet diagnostic criteria for conduct disorder (CD; National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence [NICE], 2006); boys are three times more likely than girls to have such problems (Hutchings, Williams, Martin, & Pritchard, 2011; Office for National Statistics, 2007). Children with early onset behavioral problems likely to develop into CD are at high risk for social and emotional problems, poor school attendance, school dropout, academic failure and delinquency (Webster-Stratton, Reid, & Stoolmiller, 2008). Over the last decade, teachers have reported increasing levels of behavioral problems within the classroom (Hutchings et al., 2011). These children are often taught by teachers who are ill prepared to cope with disruptive behavior (Webster-Stratton et al., 2008). They are also likely to receive less support and positive feedback from their teachers and their peers (Arnold et al., 1999). Exposure to a supportive teacher and a positive classroom environment improves the academic achievement of high-risk children (Werner, 1999). High levels of praise for appropriate behavior improve children?s behavioral, social, and emotional adjustment as does the use of proactive teaching and positive discipline strategies (Webster-Stratton et al., 2008). These studies demonstrate that there is a need for effective, evidence-based classroom intervention programs to support teachers.
Although co-morbid diagnoses often are not the presenting problem for a child with ODD, they convey additional risk in short- and long-term treatment outcomes and may be directly or indirectly contributing to the externalizing behavior problems (C. Webster-Stratton, 1985, 1990). Thus, treatments that target children?s oppositional and aggressive behaviors, such as the Incredible Years (IY) Child Dinosaur Curriculum must be flexible enough to meet the needs of children with complicated profiles. Since young children cannot easily communicate their feelings or worries and the reasons for their misbehavior, it is important for therapists to look beyond the aggressive symptoms to the underlying reasons for the misbehavior.
The ability of young children to manage their emotions and behaviors and to make meaningful friendships is an important prerequisite for school readiness and academic success. Socially competent children are also more academically successful and poor social skills are a strong predictor of academic failure. This article describes The Incredible Years Dinosaur Social Skills and Problem Solving Child Training program, which teaches skills such as emotional literacy, empathy or perspective taking, friendship and communication skills, anger management, interpersonal problem solving, and how to be successful at school. The program was first evaluated as a small group treatment program for young children who were diagnosed with Oppositional Defiant and Conduct Disorders. More recently the program has been adapted for use by preschool and elementary teachers as a prevention curriculum designed to increase the social, emotional, and academic competence, and decrease problem behaviors of all children in the classroom. The content, methods, and teaching processes of this classroom curriculum are discussed.
Multi-component interventions for conduct disorder target several contexts of a child?s life (e.g., both home and school environments) and are generally more effective than single-component behavioral interventions. Whether the multi-component approach is cost-effective remains an unanswered question. This article analyzes two decades of data from the Incredible Years (IY) Series to examine the costeffectiveness of delivering multiple, stacked intervention components versus a single-component delivery approach. Cost-effectiveness analysis (CEA) provides decision makers with important economic information that can be used to aid in the selection of a program delivery format from one of several competing approaches. CEA concepts, including explicit budget constraints and strict dominance, are demonstrated using IY data; guidelines for interpreting CEA results are provided. Our analyses suggest that combining intervention components is a cost-effective approach to treating behavioral problems in a clinic-based youth population.
Wally is a celebrity among kindergartners at Ben Franklin Elementary School. When he shows his tan-fabric face and brown, curly, yarn hair, kids call out to him and come running to give him a hug or a high five.
Stripped of its dependence on video technology and other resources to be found in most US and UK schools, the Incredible Years prevention program has shown that with expert modification it can still be effective even in difficult social conditions.
The purpose of the current project was to determine the prevalence of conduct problems, low social competence, and associated risk factors in a sample of 4-year-old low-income children (N = 426) from 64 Head Start classrooms in the Seattle area.
Families of 97 children with early-onset conduct problems, 4 to 8 years old, were randomly assigned to 1 of 4 conditions: a parent training treatment group (PT), a child training group (CT), a combined child and parent training group (CT + PT), or a waiting-list control group (CON). Post treatment assessments indicated that all 3 treatment conditions had resulted in significant improvements in comparison with controls. Comparisons of the 3 treatment conditions indicated that CT and CT + PT children showed significant improvements in problem solving as well as conflict management skills, as measured by observations of their interactions with a best friend; differences among treatment conditions on these measures consistently favored the CT condition over the PT condition. As for parent and child behavior at home, PT and CT + PT parents and children had significantly more positive interactions, compared with CT parents and children. One-year follow-up assessments indicated that all the significant changes noted immediately post treatment had been maintained over time. Moreover, child conduct problems at home had significantly lessened over time. Analyses of the clinical significance of the results suggested that the combined CT + PT conditions produced the most significant improvements in child behavior at 1-year follow-up.
This chapter describes a treatment program ? Dina Dinosaur’s social, emotional, and problem-solving child training program- that was designed specifically with developmentally appropriate teaching methods for young children (ages 4-8 years) and based on theory related to the types of social, emotional, and cognitive deficits or excesses exhibited by children with conduct problems.