Aggression Replacement Training with Behaviorally Disordered Adolescents

Abstract

This study assessed the effects of a 10-week aggression replacement training program with a group of 39 adolescents with behavioral disorders in residential treatment. Two-thirds of the sample had DSM III-R diagnoses of conduct disorder. Assigned to the treatment group were 25 subjects and 14 subjects were assigned to the control group. Subjects were pre- and posttested on four criterion-referenced measures and one behavior incident measure. Personality characteristics of subjects reflecting possible amenability to treatment were also explored. Results indicate that subjects in the treatment group improved over controls only on one measure: knowledge of social skills. Exploratory analyses indicated that skill knowledge increased across the personality dimensions of self-concept, locus of control, and psychopathy. Strategies are presented for maximizing the probability of demonstrating behavioral gains in future research.

Aggression replacement training (ART) for reducing antisocial behavior in adolescents and adults: A systematic review

“…Randomized controlled trials. Coleman et al (1992) found no significant differences between the ART condition and the control condition in acting-out behavior self-control, social skills and moral reasoning, see Table 1. In Jones (1991), three conditions were compared: ART, the moral-reasoning component of ART only, and a treatment-as-usual (TAU) control.…”

“…In eleven of the 16 included studies, it was unclear how many of the participants had a history of aggressive-, violent-and/or criminal behavior although the general statements made by the investigators suggest that at least some participants had such a history. A history of drug/alcohol abuse was reported in four studies (Barnoski, 2004;Coleman, Pfeiffer, & Oakland (1992); Danielsson et al, 2011;Erickson, 2013). The remaining twelve studies did not provide any information on the drug/alcohol abuse histories of the participants.…”

“…Both RCTs had high or unclear selection bias and a high risk of other sources of bias (Coleman et al, 1992;Jones, 1991). One of the important other sources of bias was the potential for chance imbalance between the arms of the trial due to the small number of participants.…”

“…Seven studies reported results of tests with documented psychometric properties or staff observations of social skills in youth (Coleman et al, 1992;Erickson, 2013;Goldstein et al, 1989;Gundersen & Svartdal, 2006;Koposov et al, 2014;Nodarse, 1998). Moral reasoning was explored in six trials including youths (Coleman et al, 1992;Jones, 1991;Gundersen & Svartdal, 2006;Zimmerman, 1987). All of these studies reported pre-and post-intervention measures, although the periods covered and lengths of the follow-up times differed considerably between studies.…”

Program Evaluation Challenges: Is Aggression Replacement Training (ART) Effective?

“…Homogeneity of samples and a lack of reporting on ethnicity in early research threaten the external validity of past findings. For example, three samples consisted of predominantly white males (Kennedy, 1989;Curulla, 1991;Leeman et al, 1993), racial demographic data were not available in other studies (Goldstein et al, 1989;Jones, 1991;Coleman et al, 1992;Gundersen & Svartdal, 2006), and only four experimental ART studies included multiethnic samples (Goldstein et al, 1987(Goldstein et al, , 1994Nodarse 1998;Nugent et al, 1999). Given that minorities are overrepresented compared to whites in the delinquent population (Glick, 2003) this shortcoming limits consumers' ability to comprehend findings' implications or replicate findings (Dowden, Antonowicz & Andrews, 2003).…”