Preschool Behavior Project

Investigators: Donna Bryant (bryant@unc.edu) , Janis Kupersmidt, Donna-Marie Winn

Project staff: Sasha Bartosik, Brenda Williamson, Teresa Partin, Diane Webster

Research questions/goals: To study treatment approaches for preschoolers with problems of aggression and noncompliance. Oppositional and antisocial behaviors of adolescence can be reliably predicted from early childhood behaviors and risk factors. Irritability, discipline problems and acting out are early signs associated with later behavioral problems. This study tested the effectiveness of a comprehensive, research-based intervention comprised of a specific set of activities for classroom teachers to use in everyday classroom activities and for mental health consultants to use with parents through group meetings and home visits.

The original plan was to have a development/planning year, a pilot-testing year, 2 years of intervention with two cohorts of 4-year-olds, and a follow-up year. Because funding was ended after year 3, only one cohort of children participated in the randomized trial. Thus, the effectiveness question could not be answered, but several descriptive studies about prevalence and types of behavior have been conducted and published or submitted for review.

We conducted a literature review of interventions for preschoolers with challenging behaviors, finding that much work has been done with older children, but little with children younger than 6.

We conducted a prevalence study of over 50 preschool teachers who provided data on over 440 children in their classes, allowing us to study incidence, prevalence, and types of aggressive behavior in a large sample of typical children attending child care.

With 3 Head Start programs we began a study of the intervention we developed, obtaining data from 25 Head Start classrooms about teachers' practices and beliefs, children's behavior and skills, and, through interviews with the parents, about parents beliefs and practices about child-rearing as well as their views of their own child's development.

Findings: The prevalence study found that overt and covert aggression could be distinguished in preschoolers, replicating a finding that is typical in the literature with older children but quite new among very young children. Screening measures that could distinguish overt, covert, and relational aggression may have more utility in better identifying children who may have difficulty later on and in developing treatment approaches for children who are experiencing problems with aggression.

We have also found that aggression is not that much more common among Head Start children compared to a random sample of community child care children. Although Head Start children had higher levels of some types of physical aggression, community child care children had higher levels of some verbal forms of aggression.

In both samples the prevalence of high levels of aggression was the same, about 10%, a surprising finding. Although the negative impact of the stress and correlates of poverty on aggression in the classroom can be detected at the young age of 4, in general it is notable that these may not be the most important risk factors that account for individual differences in aggressive behavior in preschoolers.

Other factors besides poverty, such as parenting factors or other forms of stress exposure, may account for the comparable rates of aggression between these two diverse populations.

Policy, practice, or professional development implications: The primary implication of this study is the strong need for training and education of early childhood teachers and their supervisors on strategies for helping children learn to get along well together, control their anger, and solve problems without resorting to aggression.

Many positive strategies are effective in reducing such behaviors and the ultimate goal, of course, is to prevent them.

A major implication of the findings for screening is that aggression is not a uniform construct in young children and if better measures of preschoolers existed with which to differentiate types of aggression.

The Preschool Behavior Project is continuing with funding from the Administration for Children Youth and Families as part of the Head Start Mental Health Consortium of studies.

Journal articles:

Bryant, D., Vizzard, L., Willoughby, M., & Kupersmidt, J. B. (1999). A review of interventions for preschoolers with aggressive and disruptive behavior. Early Education and Development, 10, 47-68.

Bryant, D. (2000). Linking literacy and language with social and emotional learning. Committee for Children Prevention Update newsletter. Spring Issue.

Kupersmidt, J. B., Bryant, D., & Willoughby, M. (2000). Prevalence of aggressive behaviors among preschoolers in Head Start and community child care programs. Behavioral Disorders, 26(1), 42-52.

Willoughby, M., Kupersmidt, J., & Bryant, D. (2001). Overt and covert dimensions of antisocial behavior in early childhood. Journal of Abnormal Child Psychology, 29, 177-187. hology.