Intervention Integrity: New Paradigms and Applications

Relational aggression in adolescents: A review of theoretical and empirical research

“…"Making Choices: Social Problem Skills for Children" (Fraser, Day, Galinsky, Hodges, & Smokowski, 2004) and "Friend to Friend" (Leff et al, 2009) are two group interventions addressing Social Information Processing deficits, improving problem-solving skills, and increasing prosocial behaviors among middle age relationally aggressive children. Two more programs "Social Aggression Prevention Program" (Cappella & Weinstein, 2006) and "Sisters of Nia" (Belgrave et al, 2004) were designed to reduce adolescent girls' use of relational aggression, while increasing their empathy skills, social problemsolving abilities, and prosocial behaviors.…”

“…Most of these aforementioned programs incorporate a social problem-solving model (e.g., Fraser et al, 2004;Leff et al, 2009;Van Schoiack-Edstrom et al, 2002) given research findings highlighting that perpetrators' evaluation of social cues may influence their behavior (Crick & Dodge, 1994). The importance of taking a systemic approach to prevention incorporating a broader perspective to enhance the school and community context is recognized by many of these programs (Leff et al, 2010).…”

Initial Validation of a Knowledge-Based Measure of Social Information Processing and Anger Management

“…In other words, a new measure was desired that went beyond asking children how they would interpret and react in an ambiguous social situation that ended poorly (e.g., a vignette in which someone bumps into you from behind, and then asking the child whether or not they think that the action was on purpose or by accident) and instead identify whether or not they had a general understanding or knowledge for the sequential steps thought to be important for social and emotional processing (e.g., what is the first thing you would do if someone bumps you from behind?). Given that many school-based aggression prevention best practice programs have a social cognitive retraining emphasis in which they train participants in the awareness of the sequential social problem-solving steps (e.g., Leff et al 2009a, b; Lochman and Wells 2003; Lochman and Wells 2004), this type of measure would have widespread applicability, especially if scores on this measure were associated with attributional or behavioral indices of functioning.…”

“…However, many of the school-based aggression prevention programs being conducted have not demonstrated that they are effective (Leff et al 2001) and/or that they are able to be implemented or evaluated in a consistent and systematic manner (Leff et al 2009b; Perepletchikova et al 2007). Another critique of many aggression prevention programs is that initiatives do not always measure program effectiveness or outcomes in a culturally-sensitive and/or developmentally appropriate manner (see Leff et al 2006).…”

Assessing Integrity of Intervention Implementation: Critical Factors and Future Directions

“…Further, without documenting intervention integrity it is unclear whether the independent variable (i.e., treatment) has been manipulated as intended (Gresham et al, 1993;Leff, Hoffman, & Gullan, 2009). Nonetheless, systematic monitoring of intervention integrity remains the exception rather than the rule in most psychological and educational treatment outcome studies (Perepletchikova et al, 2007).…”