Child social skills training

Abstract

Early developmental prevention of aggressive, delinquent, and other forms of antisocial behavior has become a very important field of research and policymaking in many countries (Farrington and Coid, 2003; Loeber and Farrington, 1998, 2001; McCord and Tremblay, 1992; Peters and McMahon, 1996). There are a number of reasons for this. First, conduct disorders are among the most frequent behavioral and emotional problems in young people (Lahey et al., 1999). Extremely violent, single cases and alarming crime statistics have particularly sensitized societies for this issue (Lösel and Bliesener, 2003). Whereas most youngsters show only adolescence-limited and less serious forms of antisocial behavior, the problem behavior of "early starters" is often particularly stable (Moffitt, 1993). Approximately one-half of this group will embark upon a relatively persistent and serious path of antisocial behavior (Moffitt et al., 1996; Patterson et al., 1998). These early and stable deviants cause a lot of suffering for parents, teachers, peers, and, in the long run, also for themselves. They accumulate problems such as social competence deficits, deviant peer group affiliation, school failure, or low work qualification and unemployment (Lösel and Bender, 2003; Thornberry, 1998). Many of these youngsters develop into intensive offenders who are responsible for more than one-half of classic crime (Loeber et al., 1998). Their behavior is difficult to change. Although specific modes of offender treatment are more successful than the "nothing works" doctrine suggested, effect sizes in this field are only moderate (see Lösel, 1995, 2001a). Furthermore, antisocial behavior in childhood possesses a marker function for other psychiatric disorders in adulthood (Robins and Price, 1991). © 2006 Springer.