Poster #165 - Efficacy of a Social Skills Program on Social Behaviors in Childcare: A Cluster-Randomized Controlled Trial

• In Event: 3-053 - Poster Session 10
  In Poster Session: PS 10 Section - Prevention and Interventions

Integrative Statement

Backgrounds: In most western industrialized countries, the use of preschool child care services (CCS) has constantly increased over the past four decades. Group-based child care settings are particularly propitious for the early expression of disruptive behaviors, especially by preschoolers aged between two and four years of age (Alink, 2006). Children from low socio-economic status (SES) families have been shown to be at even higher risk of exhibiting disruptive behaviors during the preschool years, and therefore experiencing more difficulties to interact prosocially in a group context and at school entry. However, attendance of a medium to high-quality CCS during the preschool years tends to reduce the gap in behavioral school readiness between children from different SES families. Hence, we hypothesized that children attending CCS from low-SES neighborhoods would benefit from a childcare educator training program aiming to support the development of children’s social skills.

Methods: A cluster-randomized controlled trial was used to test the hypothesis that children attending CCS of low-SES neighborhood where educators implemented a social skills training program would exhibit reduced levels of disruptive behaviors and increased levels of prosocial behaviors. Nineteen public CCS (361 children) were randomized into one of two conditions: 1) intervention (n=10 centers; 186 children) or 2) waiting list (n=9 centers; 175 children) (Figure 1: Trial Flow Chart). Educators rated children’s disruptive and prosocial behaviors before and after the intervention. In order to control for the nested structure of the data, we used multi-level mixed models to assess the impact of the intervention while controlling for children’s pre-intervention level of prosocial and disruptive behaviors.

Results: In post-intervention, multi-level mixed models revealed a significant interaction between intervention status and children’s sex (βintervention by children’s sex =-0.980, p=0.046) for disruptive behaviors. Girls in the intervention group exhibited lower levels of disruptive behaviors compared to girls in the control group (Cohen’s d=0.316) (Figure 2a). Finally, in post-intervention, boys in the intervention group were marginally more prosocial than boys in the control group (Cohen’s d=0.258) (Figure 2b).

Conclusions: An 8-month educator-led social skills training program implemented in CCS of low-SES neighborhoods was related to a reduction in disruptive behaviors, but only among girls. Social skills training may represent a promising strategy to promote behavioral school readiness, but studies with larger sample sizes and higher intervention intensity are needed to confirm the efficacy of this type of intervention.

Authors

• Marie-Pier Larose, University of Montreal
  Presenting Author

• Isabelle Ouellet-Morin, University of Montreal and the Montreal Mental Health University Institute
  Non-Presenting Author

• Frank Vitaro, University of Montreal
  Non-Presenting Author

• Richard Ernest Tremblay, University of Montreal
  Non-Presenting Author

• Mara Brendgen, University of Quebec at Montreal
  Non-Presenting Author

• Sylvana Côté, University of Montreal
  Non-Presenting Author