Eleven groups of students performed a 24-session intervention based on Aggression ReplacementTraining (ART) as part of their further education programme. Subjects were 65 children and young people with varying degrees of behavioural problems. Forty-seven subjects received the ART programme. Eighteen received standard social and educational services and served as comparison subjects. Social problems and skills were assessed before and after the ART intervention using multi-informant instruments (SSRS, CADBI, HIT, CBCL). Informants in the ART group indicated significant improvement following the intervention, both in terms of increased social skills and reduced behavioural problems; in contrast, informants in the comparison group did not generally indicate improvement.

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The present report presents outcome results from a randomized controlled effect study on extended Aggression Replacement Training (ART). In a preÁpost design, a 30-hour ART intervention was found to significantly reduce behavioral problems and increase social skills. The control group did not demonstrate comparable changes, but still indicated improvement. Such control-group improvement may be caused by improper treatment and control group implementation (diffusion of treatment) and/or 'secondary' diffusion caused by participants in the treatment group affecting control group subjects by demonstrating changed behavior. Both mechanisms were explored, and it is concluded that the improvement observed in the control group was due to such 'secondary diffusion'. Implications of these findings are discussed.

In 2002, Rogaland College */an educational institution for the training of social educators, nurses and occupational therapists in Norway */started a postgraduate training programme entitled ''Training of Social Competence''. The main subject of the programme was Aggression Replacement Training (Goldstein, Glick, & Gibbs, Aggression Replacement Training: A comprehensive intervention for aggressive youth. Champaign, IL: Research Press, 1998), and the programme's most important purposes were to train students in the identification, treatment, and prevention of aggressive and anti-social behaviour, and to teach them skills for the implementation of ART in organizations. Thus, the programme explicitly addressed factors associated with treatment effects, skills required as an ART trainer and programme implementation skills. The present paper reviews relevant research and briefly describes the positive evaluation results of the training programme.

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