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Two‐Year Impacts of a Universal School‐Based Social‐Emotional and Literacy Intervention: An Experiment in Translational Developmental Research
Author(s) -
Jones Stephanie M.,
Brown Joshua L.,
Lawrence Aber J.
Publication year - 2011
Publication title -
child development
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 3.103
H-Index - 257
eISSN - 1467-8624
pISSN - 0009-3920
DOI - 10.1111/j.1467-8624.2010.01560.x
Subject(s) - psychology , developmental psychology , psychological intervention , intervention (counseling) , social skills , social emotional learning , interpersonal communication , literacy , social psychology , pedagogy , psychiatry
This study contributes to ongoing scholarship at the nexus of translational research, education reform, and the developmental and prevention sciences. It reports 2‐year experimental impacts of a universal, integrated school‐based intervention in social‐emotional learning and literacy development on children’s social‐emotional, behavioral, and academic functioning. The study employed a school‐randomized, experimental design with 1,184 children in 18 elementary schools. Children in the intervention schools showed improvements across several domains: self‐reports of hostile attributional bias, aggressive interpersonal negotiation strategies, and depression, and teacher reports of attention skills, and aggressive and socially competent behavior. In addition, there were effects of the intervention on children’s math and reading achievement for those identified by teachers at baseline at highest behavioral risk. These findings are interpreted in light of developmental cascades theory and lend support to the value of universal, integrated interventions in the elementary school period for promoting children’s social‐emotional and academic skills.