Social skills training in the Fast Track Program.

Bierman, K., Greenberg, M. T., & Conduct Problems Prevention Research Group. (1996). Social skills training in the Fast Track Program. In R. DeV. Peters & R. J. McMahon (Eds.), Preventing childhood disorders, substance use, and delinquency (pp. 65-89). Sage.

Abstract: The Fast Track Program is a multisite prevention research project involved in the development and evaluation of comprehensive, multicomponent preventive intervention. Key program goals include promoting the competencies of children at risk for conduct disorders. The program involves a series of controlled field trials currently under way in four areas of the US that were selected to represent a range of geographical areas and demographic characteristics. At each of these sites, three cohorts of children have been identified as at risk for the development of conduct disorders based on teacher and parent ratings of behavior problems in kindergarten. The intervention activities of the Fast Track Program are described in this chapter. The total program involves a 6-yr span of prevention activities, covering the important developmental transitions of school entry and the transition to middle school. The focus is on the school entry intervention conducted at the 1st- and 2nd-grade levels. This chapter highlights three components [of the program]--a universal prevention curriculum used by teachers, a social skills training group program for targeted high-risk children, and a peer-pairing program, all designed to build social skills.