Study: 73905

First Step to Success Intervention Report - Children Identified With Or At Risk For An Emotional Disturbance

Review Details

Reviewed: March 2012

At least one statistically significant positive finding

Meets WWC standards without reservations

For:

First Step to Success Intervention Report - Children Identified With Or At Risk For An Emotional Disturbance

Using:

Rating:

Meets WWC standards without reservations

This review may not reflect the full body of research evidence for this intervention.

Evidence Tier rating based solely on this study. This intervention may achieve a higher tier when combined with the full body of evidence.

Please see the WWC summary of evidence for First Step to Success.

Findings

Emotional/internal behavior outcomes—Substantively important positive effect found for the domain
Outcome measure	Comparison	Period	Sample	Intervention mean	Comparison mean	Significant?	Improvement index	Evidence tier
Child Behavior Checklist- Teacher Report Form (CBCL-TRF): Withdrawn subscale	First Step to Success vs. None	Posttest	Kindergarten; 46 students	3.08	4.09	No	--

External behavior outcomes—Statistically significant positive effect found for the domain
Outcome measure	Comparison	Period	Sample	Intervention mean	Comparison mean	Significant?	Improvement index
Early Screening Project (ESP): Adaptive Behavior	First Step to Success vs. None	Posttest	Kindergarten; 46 students	28.80	22.24	Yes	38
Child Behavior Checklist- Teacher Report Form (CBCL-TRF): Agression subscale	First Step to Success vs. None	Posttest	Kindergarten; 46 students	13.08	23.71	Yes	34
Academic engaged time (AET): Kindergarten	First Step to Success vs. None	Posttest	Kindergarten; 46 students	87.32	69.05	Yes	33
Early Screening Project (ESP): Maladpative Behavior	First Step to Success vs. None	Posttest	Kindergarten; 46 students	23.52	31.86	Yes	32

Evidence Tier rating based solely on this study. This intervention may achieve a higher tier when combined with the full body of evidence.

Sample Characteristics

Characteristics of study sample as reported by study author.

Female: 26%
Male: 74%
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Oregon

Race
Other or unknown		7%
White		93%

Study Details

Setting

Study schools were located in the Eugene, Oregon school district.

Study sample

Forty-six kindergarten children were randomly assigned to the intervention group (n = 25) or to a wait-list control condition (n = 21). A table of random numbers was used to assign each pool of participants comprising Cohorts 1 and 2 to either an intervention or wait-list control condition. The study included two cohorts of students; Cohort 1 included 24 students who were in kindergarten during the 1993–94 academic year, and Cohort 2 included 22 students who were in kindergarten during the 1994–95 academic year. Participants were 26% female, 7% were of racial/ ethnic minorities, and 37% were classified as low income. Students were described as exhibiting antisocial behaviors, including victimizing others, severe tantrums, and aggression.

Intervention Group

Intervention students were exposed to both the CLASS and HomeBase components of the program. The intervention was delivered by eight trained consultants, in conjunction with the classroom teachers and parents or primary caregivers. HomeBase consisted of six lessons for parents or caregivers to help increase their child’s performance. The consultant visited the home weekly after the 10th day of the CLASS program to conduct the one-hour lesson, which also included parent-child games. All children received the First Step to Success intervention over a course of three months.

Comparison Group

The control condition did not utilize First Step to Success. Students assigned to the control group were put on a waiting list and received First Step to Success following its termination for participants in the treatment group.

Outcome descriptions

Four measures of external behavior were assessed immediately following completion of First Step to Success in kindergarten. These measures included teacher ratings on the Early Screening Project (ESP) Adaptive and Maladaptive Behavior scales, which are adaptations of the Systematic Screening for Behavior Disorders (SSBD), as well as the Child Behavior Checklist–Teacher Report Form (CBCL-TRF) Aggression Subscale, and a measure of academic engaged time (AET). This study also included the Child Behavior Checklist–Teacher Report Form (CBCL-TRF) Withdrawn Subscale as a measure of emotional/internal behavior. For a more detailed description of these outcome measures, see Appendix B.

Support for implementation

Eight program consultants (graduate students, teachers, school counselors, and teacher aides) were recruited and trained by First Step to Success developers to implement the intervention. Each consultant was assigned to two or three children. Training procedures included lectures, videotaped demonstrations, role playing, feedback, and self-evaluation. In the second year, those consultants who chose to participate again were given a refresher training course. New second-year consultants were given intensive training that included using the returning consultants as peer coaches.

First Step to Success: An Early Intervention Approach for Preventing School Antisocial Behavior.