The Effects of the Fast Track Program on Serious Problem Outcomes at the End of Elementary School

Abstract

This study examines the effects of the Fast Track program, which is a multicomponent, intensive intervention for children with early-onset conduct problems and continues from 1st grade through high school. Prior research has shown that Fast Track produces small positive effect sizes on children's social and behavioral outcomes at the end of 1st and 3rd grades in comparison to control children. This study addresses the important question of whether this intervention reduces cases of serious problems that can occur during the 4th-and 5th-grade years. Fast Track did have a significant but modest influence on children's rates of social competence and social cognition problems, problems with involvement with deviant peers, and conduct problems in the home and community, compared to children in the control condition. There was no evidence of intervention impact on children's serious problems in the school setting at Grades 4 and 5. This evaluation indicates that Fast Track has continued to influence certain key areas of children's adjustment throughout the elementary school years, reducing children's likelihood of emerging as cases with problems in their social, peer, or home functioning. The stage is set to examine potential prevention effects on these youths' serious antisocial behaviors during adolescence.A key characteristic of childhood-onset conduct problems is that they can lead to a subsequent extended and chronic pattern of antisocial behavior across a substantial period of development (Coie, Terry, Lenox, Lochman, & Hyman, 1995). "Early starters" (also described as "lifecourse persistent") begin their serious externalizing behavior problems as early as entry into elementary school (Moffitt, 1993;Patterson, Reid, & Dishion, 1992). Although risk-prediction research indicates that approximately 50% of these children do not progress to severe antisocial behavior (e.g., represent false positives in risk prediction), most seriously antisocial adolescents begin with an early starter trajectory (Hill, Lochman, Coie, Greenberg, & Conduct Problems Prevention Research Group [CPPRG], in press; Loeber, Wung, & Keenan, 1993). Because antisocial behavior at a single point is less stable than outcomes observed across multiple timepoints (Lahey, Loeber, Burke, Rathouz, & McBurnett, 2002), research has begun to explore risk prediction utilizing indexes of problem behavior outcomes evident at one of several timepoint outcomes.Prior research suggests that teacher and parent ratings of children's behavior problems at elementary-school entry have optimal sensitivity and specificity as screening indexes when Copyright © 2004 NIH-PA Author ManuscriptNIH-PA Author Manuscript NIH-PA Author Manuscript they predict to multiple time-point behavioral problem outcomes in the next year, rather than to single time-point outcomes (Lochman & CPPRG, 1995), Similarly, when this longitudinal sample was followed into later years, the teacher and parent screening scores proved most sensitive in predicting problems in the home and schoo...

Developmental mediation of genetic variation in response to the Fast Track prevention program

“…Later programming targeted prevention toward salient issues at critical developmental transitions; for example, programming for the middle-school transition addressed parental supervision and adolescent decision making relevant to alcohol, tobacco, and substance use. Previously published intent-to-treat analyses of Fast Track demonstrated its success in reducing externalizing behavior across the elementary, high school, and young adult years (CPPRG, 1999; 2002; 2004; 2007; 2011; in press), with less robust effects during middle school (CPPRG, 2010). The most pronounced impacts of the Fast Track intervention have been observed in the subgroup of children who displayed the most severe conduct problems at school entry (CPPRG, 2011).…”

“…Figure 2 illustrates the Fast Track design. Detailed description of Fast Track is available at www.fasttrackproject.org and in published evaluations (CPPRG, 1999; 2002; 2004; 2007; 2011; in press).…”

“…Randomized prevention trials have produced compelling evidence that early intervention can interrupt this developmental progression of externalizing behavior and shift children onto more adaptive trajectories (Conduct Problems Prevention Research Group (CPPRG), 1999, 2002, 2004, 2007, 2009, 2010, 2011). A critical next step for externalizing prevention research is to identify sources of heterogeneity in intervention response, including but not limited to genetic moderators (van IJzendoorn et al, 2011).…”

LLCS Vol 1, Issue 1, Full Issue

“…Elementary and upper level schools might create more choices for children and adolescents to participate in activities. Early prevention programmes that have targeted aggressive behaviour in young children (Bierman et al, 2004;Kellam et al, 2008) …”

A Study on School Adjustment for Early Entrance Students of Science Academy for the Gifted

“…영재 개인의 능력에 적합 하고 도전적인 교육환경을 제공하여 영재학생의 지적호기심과 욕구 를 충족시키는 등 긍정적인 효과를 보이고 (Brody, 2001;Gross, 1992;Kulik & Kulik, 1991), 학생들이 이 시스템으로 몇 년의 시간을 단축 한다면 교육청과 학부모는 경제적으로 절약 (Colangelo, Assouline, & Gross, 2004)할 수 있는 장점 이외에도 만족스러운 사회적 관계를 형성하고 (Caplan et al, 2002), 긍정적인 자아개념을 가지게 해주고 (Lupowski, Whitmore, & Ramsay, 1992;Shepard, Nicpon, & Doobay, 2009) (Bierman et al, 2008). 속진 프로그램이 학생들의 정서적⋅사회적 요인에 영향을 준 다는 연구 (Bierman et al, 2004), 또래집단, 부모, 교사와의 원활 한 관계 형성 등이 학교적응에 중요한 요인이라는 연구 (Lynch & Cicchetti, 1997), 아동의 자아존중감, 부모와의 애착 및 직업의 성숙도 가 아동의 학교적응에 영향을 준다는 연구 (Park, 2011) (Creswell, 2013(Creswell, /2015 (Strauss & Corbin, 1990/1996 …”