A randomized experimental test of the implementation feasibility and the efficacy of a culturally adapted Parent Management Training intervention was conducted with a sample of 73 Spanish-speaking Latino parents with middle-school-aged youth at risk for problem behaviors. Intervention feasibility was evaluated through weekly parent satisfaction ratings, intervention participation and attendance, and overall program satisfaction. Intervention effects were evaluated by examining changes in parenting and youth adjustment for the intervention and control groups between baseline and intervention termination approximately 5 months later. Findings provided strong evidence for the feasibility of delivering the intervention in a larger community context. The intervention produced benefits in both parenting outcomes (i.e., general parenting, skill encouragement, overall effective parenting) and youth outcomes (i.e., aggression, externalizing, likelihood of smoking and use of alcohol, marijuana, and other drugs). Differential effects of the intervention were based on youth nativity status.

A population-based randomized intervention trial for the prevention of conduct problems (i.e., oppositional defiant disorder and conduct disorder) is described. The LIFT (Linking the Interests of Families and Teachers) intervention was designed for all first- and fifth-grade elementary school boys and girls and their families living in at-risk neighborhoods characterized by high rates of juvenile delinquency. The 10-week intervention strategy was carefully targeted at proximal and malleable antecedents in three social domains that were identified by a developmental model of conduct problems. From 12 elementary schools, 671 first and fifth graders and their families participated either in the theory-based universal preventive intervention or in a control condition. The intervention consisted of parent training, a classroom-based social skills program, a playground behavioral program, and systematic communication between teachers and parents. A multiple measure assessment strategy was used to evaluate participant satisfaction and participation, fidelity of implementation, and the immediate impacts of the program on targeted antecedents.

The influence of family management skills (i.e., supervision, discipline, and positive adult-youth relationship) and deviant peer association on youth antisocial behavior was examined within the context of a randomized clinical trial contrasting multidimensional treatment foster care and services-as-usual group care. Participants were male adolescents with histories of chronic and serious juvenile delinquency who were mandated into residential care by the juvenile court. As hypothesized, family management skills and deviant peer association mediated the effect of treatment condition and accounted for 32% of the variance in subsequent antisocial behavior.

† People involved in the organization of the challenge. ‡ People contributing data from their institutions.§ Equal senior authors.

This article describes results from the Oregon Latino Youth Survey, which was designed to identify factors that promoted or hindered academic success for Latino middle- and high-school youngsters. The study samples included a total of 564 Latino and non-Latino students and parents. Analyses showed that Latino students reported a high frequency of discriminatory experiences and institutional barriers at school, and that they and their parents were more likely to experience institutional barriers compared to non-Latinos. Further, Latino students and parents reported that they/their youngsters were more likely to dropout of school compared to non-Latinos. Path models showed lower acculturation and more institutional barriers were related to less academic success for Latino students. More parent academic encouragement and staff extracurricular encouragement were associated with better academic outcomes for Latino students. Finally, family socioeconomic disadvantage had an indirect effect on Latino youngster academic success, through effects on parent monitoring and school involvement.

This study examined theoretical, methodological, and statistical problems involved in evaluating the outcome of aggression on the playground for a universal preventive intervention for conduct disorder. Moderately aggressive children were hypothesized most likely to benefit. Aggression was measured on the playground using observers blind to the group status of the children. Behavior was micro-coded in real time to minimize potential expectancy biases. The effectiveness of the intervention was strongly related to initial levels of aggressiveness. The most aggressive children improved the most. Models that incorporated corrections for low reliability (the ratio of variance due to true time-stable individual differences to total variance) and censoring (a floor effect in the rate data due to short periods of observation) obtained effect sizes 5 times larger than models without such corrections with respect to children who were initially 2 SDs above the mean on aggressiveness.

The peer influence on adolescent smoking, across ages 14 through 18 years, confirmed previous literature. However, no differential effect of family and peer influence on adolescent smoking was evident.

This study examined behavioral and emotional adjustment in family contexts in which there was high versus low demand for adolescents to serve as language brokers in a sample of 73 recently immigrated Latino families with middle-school-aged adolescents. Language brokering was conceptualized as a family process rather than merely an individual phenomenon. Multiple agents were used to assess language brokering and parent and youth adjustment. Results indicated that high language brokering contexts had negative associations with family stress, parenting effectiveness, and adolescent adjustment in terms of academic functioning, socioemotional health, and substance use. The findings are particularly important given the limited and mixed findings from formative research on language brokering, particularly in areas within the United States with emerging immigrant populations. Findings suggest the need for advancing practices that increase language and cultural supports for immigrant families and support parents' efforts to foster positive youth and family adjustment.