Academic Behavior Problems Research Articles

Associations between adolescent cannabis use and young-adult functioning in three longitudinal twin studies

Observational studies have linked cannabis use to an array of negative outcomes, including psychiatric symptoms, cognitive impairment, and educational and occupational underachievement. These associations are particularly strong when cannabis use occurs in adolescence. Nevertheless, causality remains unclear. The purpose of the present study was thus to examine associations between prospectively assessed adolescent cannabis use and young-adult outcomes (psychiatric, cognitive, and socioeconomic) in three longitudinal studies of twins (n = 3,762). Twins reporting greater cumulative cannabis use in adolescence reported higher levels of psychopathology as well as poorer socioeconomic outcomes in young adulthood. However, cannabis use remained associated only with socioeconomic outcomes (i.e., educational attainment, occupational status, and income) in monozygotic-cotwin control analyses, which account fully for shared genetic and environmental confounding. Follow-up analyses examining associations between twin differences in adolescent cannabis use and longitudinal change in academic functioning during the middle- and high-school years provided a possible mechanism for these associations, indicating that greater cannabis use during this period was associated with decreases in grade point average and academic motivation as well as increases in academic problem behavior and school disciplinary problems. Our findings thus suggest that cannabis use in adolescence has potentially causal, deleterious effects on adolescent academic functioning and young-adult socioeconomic outcomes despite little evidence suggesting a strong, causal influence on adult mental health or cognitive ability.

A Randomized Controlled Trial of Group Triple P With Chinese Parents in Mainland China.

This study evaluated the effects of Group Triple P with Chinese parents on parenting and child outcomes as well as outcomes relating to child academic learning in Mainland China. Participants were 81 Chinese parents and their children in Shanghai, who were randomly allocated to an intervention group or wait-list control group. Parents in the intervention condition received Group Triple P training, and parents and children were assessed at three/two time points. Compared with the control group, parents in the intervention group reported significant improvements in child adjustment problems, parenting practices, parental adjustment, and parenting self-efficacy at post-assessment. Moreover, there was a significant increase in parents' satisfaction with children's academic achievement and a reduction in children's academic problem behaviors at post-intervention. All these effects were maintained at 6-month follow-up. There was also a significant increase in the child report of positive parenting at post-intervention.

Associations of Physical Activity and Dietary Behaviors With Children's Health and Academic Problems*

We examined the associations of physical activities and dietary behaviors with children's health and academic-behavioral problems. We employed a Community-wide Children's Health Assessment and Planning Survey to examine physical activity, healthy meals, health status, and academic-behavioral problems in 3708 children 7 to 14 years of age. Statistical associations were examined with chi-square test and logistic regression analysis; we calculated odds ratios (ORs) and 95% confidence intervals (CIs). Among these children, 30.2% were overweight-obese, 11.0% had academic problems, and 7.9% had behavioral problems. Children classified as healthy eaters were more likely to exercise ≥4 days/week (79.1% vs 64.6%, OR: 2.08, 95% CI: 1.14 to 2.49), less likely to be overweight-obese (27.7% vs 44.6%, OR: 0.48, CI: 0.31 to 0.73), less likely to have academic problems (9.1% vs 16.1%, OR: 0.57, 95% CI: 0.41 to 0.79) and behavioral problems (6.9% vs 13.9%, OR: 0.46, 95% CI: 0.32 to 0.66) compared with their less healthy eating peers. Physical activity and healthy meals were associated with an improved health status (p < .001). However, the proportions of children taking unhealthy meals or choosing sedentary lifestyle increased as the cohorts progressed (p < .05) from childhood (7 to 8 years) to adolescence (13 to 14 years). Healthy (or unhealthy) lifestyle behaviors are significantly interrelated. Children who take healthy meals and exercise often are associated with better health and fewer academic and behavioral problems. Unfortunately, taking unhealthy meals and sedentary lifestyle characterize a growing proportion of young adolescents. Thus, curbing unhealthy lifestyle behaviors should start in early childhood.

Three Year Follow-Up of Coping Power Intervention Effects: Evidence of Neighborhood Moderation?

The Coping Power program is an indicated prevention program for at-risk aggressive preadolescent children, and has had demonstrated short-term effects on antisocial outcomes. This study provided a longer-term 3-year follow-up for a sample of 245 fourth grade children who had been randomly assigned to Coping Power or to a care-as-usual Comparison condition. Intervention took place during the fifth and sixth grade years, at the time of transition to middle school. Growth curve analyses indicate that Coping Power had linear effects through the 3years after the end of intervention on reductions in children's aggressive behavior and academic behavior problems, children's expectations that aggression would lead to positive outcomes, and parents' lack of supportiveness with their children. Participants' homes were geocoded into census tracts, and neighborhood qualities which may have moderated outcomes involved neighborhood disadvantage based on census tract information, and parent-reported social organization of neighborhoods. There was limited support for the hypothesis that intervention effects would be greater in less problematic neighborhoods. Intervention produced the greatest improvement in parental supportiveness for families living in communities with less neighborhood disadvantage, but there were no similar effects for the behavioral and social cognitive outcomes, or in analyses using neighborhood social organization as a moderator. Counter the hypothesis, intervention produced the greatest reduction in children's aggression in neighborhoods characterized by poor social organization.

From the laboratory to the field and back again: Morningside Academy's 32 years of improving students' academic performance.

* ABOUT MORNINGSIDE ACADEMY Morningside Academy is a behaviorally based laboratory school (Dewey, 1990a, 1990b) that helps elementary and middle school students to catch up and get ahead. It was founded and is currently directed by Kent Johnson. Most of its students did not perform to their potential in their previous schools. Entering students typically score in the first and second quartiles on standardized achievement tests in reading, language, and mathematics. Some have learning disabilities; others are labeled as having attention deficit disorder or attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. Some lag behind their peer group for no diagnosed reason. Students' IQs range from low average to well above average. A small percentage of students have poor relations with family members and friends, but most do not. Morningside is a school for children with academic behavior problems, not a school for children with social and interpersonal behavior problems. ELEMENTARY SCHOOL: FOUNDATIONS Morningside Academy's Foundations program offers a full day of foundational skills that include reading, writing, math, thinking, reasoning, and problem solving. Elementary school-aged students enroll in the Foundations program for one to three years or more to catch up to grade level. About half of our middle school-aged students--those who enter without these foundational skills and who require a full day of foundation skills to make a year's progress in school--also enroll in the Foundations program. Many Foundations students who catch up to grade level extend their stay to achieve beyond their grade level. Morningside Academy offers a money-back guarantee for progressing two years in one in the skill of greatest deficit. In 31 years, Morningside Academy has returned less than one percent of school-year tuition. At Morningside Academy, we construct behavioral repertoires to eliminate (a) deficient basic academic skills, such as reading, writing, and mathematics; (b) deficient learning skills, such as goal setting, listening, noticing, reasoning, thinking, studying, and organizing; and (c) deficient performance skills; that is, skills in performing tasks in a timely, accurate, and organized manner, without disrupting others or causing oneself undue grief. The Morningside program focuses upon these three key academic, learning, and performance repertoires to increase the intensity and explicitness of instruction. The model at Morningside is in direct contrast to compensatory models that teach children to sidestep their disabilities. Instead, at Morningside, we teach students to face their behavioral deficits head on. The Foundations academic program focuses on reading, writing, and mathematics, including the language, facts, skills, concepts, principles, problem solving, and organizational aspects of each. Literature, social studies, and science provide the content for teaching these foundations in the sense that students learn to read and write about passages from these content areas and learn to apply math facts and operations to problems that each may present. Each student participates in extensive entry assessments of academic, learning, and performance skills. Students with similar needs and goals are grouped together for instruction. However, groupings change repeatedly throughout the day as students move from reading to writing to mathematics. Groupings also change continuously throughout the school year as students make more or less progress than students in their current group. There is no hard-and-fast rule about when a student may move to a new group. Later in the article when we describe our assessment process, we'll return to this issue. The comprehensive reading program includes basic prerequisites such as print awareness, phonemic awareness through auditory blending and segmenting, and the alphabetic principle. Basic foundations in decoding are emphasized, including sound-symbol correspondence, textual blending and segmenting strategies, and reading fluency. …

Building Local Capacity for Training and Coaching Data-Based Problem Solving With Positive Behavior Intervention and Support Teams

Positive Behavior Intervention and Support Teams use data to guide decisions about student social and academic behavior problems. In previous evaluation and research efforts, the authors taught team members to use Team-Initiated Problem Solving, a model that embeds data-based decision making into a broader problem-solving framework. In this study, the authors taught local trainer/coaches to deliver the problem-solving workshop to Positive Behavior Intervention and Support Team members. Trainer/coaches delivered the workshop and follow-up technical assistance with fidelity, and team members subsequently (a) used the problem-solving procedures in their meetings and (b) perceived positive differences between their pre- and postworkshop meetings. The study provides support for developing local capacity to deliver training and coaching, in particular as it concerns data-based decision making and problem solving.

Introduction to the Special Series on Positive Behavior Support in Schools

With a basis in a strong tradition of behavioral science—in particular, applied behavior analysis—positive behavior support (PBS) evolved to improve and extend comprehensive interventions for individuals with severe problem behavior and developmental disabilities (Carr et al., 1999; Sugai & Horner, in press; Sugai et al., 2000). In recent years, and particularly since the release of regulations for the implementation of the 1997 amendments to the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA ’97), application of the PBS approach has been expanded to include a variety of settings (school, home, and community), students with and without disabilities, and a broad range of social and academic problem behaviors. More important, the focus on the PBS approach has broadened from individual case management to systems-level implementation, especially for the school as a whole (Lewis & Sugai, 1999; Sugai & Horner, 1999). As such, PBS has been defined as a broad range of systemic and individualized strategies for achieving important social and learning outcomes while preventing problem behaviors in all students (Sugai et al., 2000). The expansion and evolution of PBS have been accelerated by increased national attention on incidents of school violence, the lack of discipline and prosocial behavior in schools, and the use of drugs and alcohol by youth. The initial reaction has been to increase the amount of surveillance, “toughen up” and apply zero-tolerance sanctions, and enforce exclusionary and alternative placements in anticipation of future problem behaviors by some children (U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, 2001). Although this response may be a “natural” (i.e., negative reinforcement) teacher response (Gunter, Denny, Jack, Shores, & Nelson, 1993; Gunter, Jack, DePaepe, Reed, & Harrison, 1994; Jack et al., 1996) and immediate reductions in problem behavior often are experienced (McCord, 1995; Patterson, Reid, & Dishion, 1992), problem behaviors are likely to return with increased intensity and frequency (Mayer, 1995; Mayer & Butterworth, 1979; Mayer, Butterworth, Nafpaktitis, & Sulzer-Azaroff, 1983).