Improving Young Children’s Social and Emotional Competence: A Randomized Trial of the Preschool “PATHS” Curriculum

Abstract

This paper reports the results from a randomized clinical trial evaluating an adaptation of the Promoting Alternative Thinking Strategies curriculum (PATHS) for preschool-age children in Head Start. PATHS is a universal, teacher-taught social-emotional curriculum that is designed to improve children's social competence and reduce problem behavior. Twenty classrooms in two Pennsylvania communities participated in the study. Teachers in the 10 intervention classrooms implemented weekly lessons and extension activities across a 9-month period. Child assessments and teacher and parent reports of child behavior assessments were collected at the beginning and end of the school year. Analysis of covariance was used to control for baseline differences between the groups and pretest scores on each of the outcome measures. The results suggest that after exposure to PATHS, intervention children had higher emotion knowledge skills and were rated by parents and teachers as more socially competent compared to peers. Further, teachers rated intervention children as less socially withdrawn at the end of the school year compared to controls.

Evaluation of the “Steps for Life” Personal and Social Skills Greek K-Curriculum

“…Conversely, emotions' management and identification as well as emotional literacy enhancement were found to be widely targeted by similar interventions, most of which appeared to achieve their goals (Domitrovich, Cortes, & Greenberg, 2007;Gansle, 2005;Hawkins, Smith, & Catalano, 2004), thus confirming our finding that students' emotional skills can be improved by school-based programs.…”

“…Social skills' development in general constitutes a conquered domain of several mental health promotion programs pursuing general social competence (Beelmann & Lösel, 2006;Domitrovich, Cortes, & Greenberg, 2007;Flannery et al, 2003;Mishara & Ystgaard, 2006), but the specific friendship skills examined in our study did not result to higher improvement of the intervention group.…”

Maximizing the potential of early childhood education to prevent externalizing behavior problems: A meta-analysis

“…Specifically, the Head Start CARES study simultaneously evaluated the effects of a child social skills training enhancement (Head Start plus Preschool PATHS) and a caregiver behavior management enhancement (Head Start plus Incredible Years) relative to Head Start as usual (see Domitrovich et al, 2007 andWebster-Stratton, Reid, &Hammond, 2001 for details on PATHS and Incredible Years). Both enhancements included comparable levels of coaching support, and the evaluation measured a broad set of social and emotional outcomes.…”

“…For example, preschool PATHS ("Promoting Alternative Thinking Strategies) is a 30-lesson curricular enhancement focused on teaching children about emotions and how to respond in social situations (Domitrovich, Cortes, & Greenberg, 2007;Morris et al, 2014). Preschool PATHS was originally developed to supplement Head Start's typical programming.…”

A proszociális viselkedés fejlődése és fejlesztése kisgyermekkorban

“…A PATHS Program (Domitrovich, Cortes & Greenberg, 2007) a szociális és érzelmi képességek javításával segíti elő mind a hatékony társas viselkedés, mind a tanulási sikeresség fejlődését és az agresszió csökkenését. A program részeként cél az önkontroll, az érzelmek megértésének és kommunikálásának fejlesztése, illetve a problémamegoldás-hoz szükséges viselkedési elemek kialakítása.…”