The chief premise of this project is that preadolescents who are seriously rejected by their social peers are at risk for disorder in later adolescence and adulthood. Socially rejected, black preadolescents from low-income homes will be the targets of preventive intervention efforts designed to improve their social adjustment. Based on recent studies of behavior patterns leading to rejected status, a social skills training program has been revised to include anger control, conflict and social negotiation management, and peer groups entry training. For a subsets of rejected children with serious academic problems the social skills training will be crossed with academic skill training in a 2 x 2 intervention design. School setting observations and subject self-esteem and affective adjustment measures will be taken before and after intervention and at one-year follow-up to permit an analysis of process variable and criterion variable relationships. A test of the risk hypothesis will be made on outcome measures taken at two and three year intervals after intervention. Based on a model of development linking rejected status to pathology and deviance in early and late adolescence, outcome measures have been planned to include parental and teacher behavior check-lists, juvenile court and police contacts, truancy and academic adjustment indices, and subjects' self-concepts and affective states. Outcome comparisons will be made between those for whom intervention was successful in improving social status, those who did not change, control subjects who spontaneously improved, and controls who remained in risk status. Three intervention cohorts will be included in lagged design.
| Lochman, J E; Coie, J D; Underwood, M K et al. (1993) Effectiveness of a social relations intervention program for aggressive and nonaggressive, rejected children. J Consult Clin Psychol 61:1053-8 |
| Underwood, M K; Coie, J D; Herbsman, C R (1992) Display rules for anger and aggression in school-age children. Child Dev 63:366-80 |
| Coie, J D; Lochman, J E; Terry, R et al. (1992) Predicting early adolescent disorder from childhood aggression and peer rejection. J Consult Clin Psychol 60:783-92 |
| Coie, J D; Dodge, K A (1988) Multiple sources of data on social behavior and social status in the school: a cross-age comparison. Child Dev 59:815-29 |
