Antisocial behavior in childhood and adolescence is an unquestionably serious problem for society. Family-based treatments are promising but face the challenging obstacle of premature parental dropout. To systematically study dropout, we randomly assigned 147 families with a markedly aggressive child (age 4 to 9 years) to a standard family treatment (SFT) focusing exclusively on parental management or to an enhanced family treatment (EFT) that also promoted frequent discussions of adult issues. EFT produced a significantly lower dropout rate than SFT overall, but particularly for highadversity families. Dropouts were clearly distinguishable from completers on several dimensions. The results underscore the importance of addressing contextual variables such as family adversity in the treatment of childhood antisocial behavior.

Social learning family intervention (SLFI) is the treatment of choice for young children exhibiting severe conduct disorder and antisocial behavior. Despite the reported success of this intervention, high levels of resistance, poor engagement, and inadequate maintenance of improvements are observed for a substantial proportion of distressed families. These obstacles have inspired enhancement efforts to improve basic social learning family-intervention models. The present review identifies promising approaches for maximizing treatment gains for the conduct-disordered child. Relevant studies were organized into 3 approaches: enhancements and expansions (a) within a dyadic (parent-child) interaction model, (b) within a broad-based model that acknowledges a wider range of family influences, and (c) through a multisystems model. SLFI enhancements within the dyadic model have centered on either the strengthening of parental skills already included in the SLFI regimen or the adding of new interactional strategies. Some gains, but only partial success, have been achieved with the dyadic model supplements. SLFI expansions from a broad-based model have focused on parental adjustment, parental expectations during treatment, and social-environmental stressors. The multisystems adjuncts to SLFI include cognitive-behavioral interventions to affect peer relations and ecological approaches to sweep across domains. The broad-based and multisystems expansions have produced promising but undertested treatment regimens. Related areas of investigation included therapy process research, medication combined with SLFI, and the involvement of fathers in treatment. Recommendations are offered for improvement of SLFI research. The apparent theoretical crossroads for SLFI treatment of childhood conduct disorder are discussed.

No abstract

The keyword method of foreign language vocabulary learning has proven effective when implemented in highly structured laboratorylike settings. In contrast, the results of a recent study suggest that when the method is implemented in an actual classroom context, its effectiveness may be diminished. Several explanations for this diminution are offered and explored in the six experiments reported here. Included are two experiments that succeeded in producing striking keyword effects when the method was administered to either small or classroom-sized groups of elementary school-aged children.

No abstract