Educational Progress in a Population of Youth with Aggression and Emotional Disturbance

Abstract

Youth with a pattern of aggression and emotional disturbance have well-described problems in a school setting. It is not known which particular psychosocial features of such high-risk populations best predict educational problems or progress. Comprehensive assessment of psychosocial resilience by inventorying known risk and protective factors has been shown to predict outcome in a variety of life domains in naturalistic, longitudinal studies of resilient high-risk children. In this study, we analyzed a number of risk and protective factors that were potentially predictive of educational progress in the male Willie M. population, a North Carolina group of youth with severe aggression and emotional disturbance. We found that several psychosocial protective factors, including good problem-solving skills, reading at or above grade level, ability to get along with peers and adults, likability, sense of humor, and having an adult mentor at school, were associated with positive educational progress. Substance use and living at home with the natural family were shown to have deleterious effects on school progress. The total number of protective factors was significantly associated with educational progress, whereas the total number of risk factors was unrelated to progress. These findings may have important implications for designing educational interventions for youth with emotional and behavioral disorders.

School Staff Perspectives on the Challenges and Solutions to Working With Court‐Involved Students

“…Otherwise, writing assignments may trigger trauma responses and impede students from being able to complete coursework requirements . Emerson and Lovitt also recommend that teachers and school support staff include self‐determination and social skills training in their work with students, as social skills may promote academic success with emotionally impaired students …”

“…13 Emerson and Lovitt 13 also recommend that teachers and school support staff include self-determination and social skills training in their work with students, as social skills may promote academic success with emotionally impaired students. 41 Implications for school policies include school administrators promoting collaborative and supportive environments to raise staff confidence 25,28 and student success. 26,28 Also, policies should foster a community-wide, trauma-focused approach with consistent cross-system communication between teachers, school staff, and other child-serving professionals, such as child welfare workers, juvenile justice professionals, and mental health therapists.…”

Residential Trajectories of Participants in North Carolina's Willie-M. Program

“…Willie-M. program participants were exposed to a high number of individual and contextual risk factors and were among the most severely impaired youth who received services from North Carolina's public mental health systems (Bowen & Flora, 2002;Dodge et al, 2000;Vance, Fernandez, & Biber, 1998). Eligibility criteria included presence of an emotional, neurological, or mental disability, history of violent behavior, and involvement with the juvenile justice system (West & Verhaagen, 1999).…”

School Aggression and Dispositional Aggression among Middle School Boys

“…Research indicates a relationship between measures of dispositional aggression and behavioral aggression among adolescents and adults across contexts (Coles, Greene, & Braithwaite, 2002;Driscoll, Jarman, & Yankeelov, 1994;Dula & Ballard, 2003;Vance, Fernandez, & Biber, 1998). For example, those who score higher on measures of dispositional aggression are more likely to engage in driver aggression (Deffenbacher, Lynch, Deffenbacher, & Oetting, 2001;Dula & Ballard, 2003).…”

“…Finally, among adult samples, those high in dispositional aggression are more likely to perpetrate spousal abuse (Schumacher, Feldbau-Kohn, Slep, & Heyman, 2001) and workplace violence (Douglas & Martinko, 2001;Neuman & Baron, 1998). Less is known about such correlations among children and adolescents, but children who perpetrate school aggression are likely to have a history of aggression and/or being bullied (Speaker & Petersen, 2000;Vance et al, 1998) and are more likely to have friends who are aggressive (Coie et al, 1999;Dodge, Coie, Pettit, & Price, 1990;Minden, Henry, Tolan, & Gorman-Smith, 2000). Further, children who are aggressive in mid-to-late childhood are likely to be aggressive in adolescence (Séguin, Arseneault, Boulerice, Harden, & Tremblay, 2002).…”