Peer Coping Skills Training (PCS)

 

OVERVIEW

Peer Coping-Skills Training (PCS) is designed for aggressive children in first through third grade to improve prosocial behaviors and interactions with peers.  Group sessions are administered in the PCS program and focus on role-play tasks as well as group activities to provide realistic situations for positive social interactions.  The study evaluation of children categorized at baseline to be aggressive found that PCS was effective in reducing teacher ratings of aggression and increasing teacher ratings of prosocial coping.  Likewise, aggressive children in the PCS program had improvements in observed prosocial coping on an information exchange task.  No positive or negative impacts were found for children who were categorized as non-aggressive at baseline.

 

DESCRIPTION OF PROGRAM

 

Target population: Aggressive school-age children in first through third grade

The PCS program consists of five main parts within each session: group rules, reunion, probes, group activity, and group reward.  Each session begins with a discussion of the group rules which underlie the program.  In the reunion phase, children discuss either pleasurable or distressing events which have occurred since the last meeting.  Probes are small role-play situations which are rehearsed in pairs and scored by an evaluator.  After each probe, the child is given feedback on his or her role-play in order to promote the acquisition of prosocial-coping skills.  Probes are ongoing while the rest of the children are in the group activity, where they work on a task, craft, or game.  Group rewards are given to promote rule following, group cohesion, and motivation.

                                       

EVALUATION(S) OF PROGRAM

Prinz, R. J., Blechman, E. A., and Dumas, J. E. (1994).  An evaluation of peer-coping skills training for childhood aggression.  Journal of Clinical Child Psychology, 11, 193-203.

Evaluated population:  196 children in grades one through three from six elementary public schools in Columbia, South Carolina, and Denver, Colorado. A total of 25 classes were randomly assigned to treatment or control conditions.  The aggressive child group was comprised of approximately 66-76% African-American and Hispanics while the competent-nonaggressive group was made up of 66-72% African-American and Hispanic children.

Approach:  Assignment of conditions was done on a random class-by-class basis with up to four aggressive children and four socially competent/non-aggressive children selected from each class.  Initial selection of groups (aggressive and competent-nonaggressive) was determined through teachers' appraisals of the students using the Teacher Report Form of the Child Behavior Checklist (CBCL-T) and the Communication Effectiveness Scale for Teachers (CES-T).  PCS training was given to, at maximum eight students, four from each group, matched for sex and ethnicity when possible.  Control as well as treatment classrooms participated in the Good-News Note system as a means of controlling for classroom environment while ensuring minimal intervention. 

Data in the form of teacher reports, observational reports, and peer measures were collected both pre and post-intervention to assess the impact of the intervention.  Teacher reports assessed children using three scales designed to measure social skills, aggressiveness, and internalizing.  An observational report of an information-exchange task was used to assess prosocial behaviors.  To gather this information, researchers videotaped pairs of children reacting to a specific information-exchange task and later coded the tapes using the INTERACT/BLISS coding system.  Peer acceptance ratings were assessed by having students rate each other on a 5 point likert scale.

Results: Aggressive children in the PCS treatment condition had improvements in prosocial coping within the information-exchange task compared with children in the control group.  Aggressive children in the treatment condition also received lower aggression ratings from teachers.  Competent-nonaggressive children in the treatment group likewise had increased ratings of prosocial coping within the information-exchange task compared with children in the control group, but no impacts on aggression, internalizing, social skills, or peer acceptance were found.   

A follow-up assessment was conducted approximately six months later and found that aggressive children in treatment conditions had higher teacher-rated prosocial coping and lower teacher-rated aggression.  Although not statistically significant, there were also increases in teacher-rated social skills.

The authors note that PCS training did increase pro-social behavior among aggressive children, but those increases did not lower aggression levels enough to move children out of the clinical range.  Also, ratings of social status conducted by peers did not differ significantly for aggressive children in treatment and control groups, suggesting no initial gains in peer socialization.

 

SOURCES FOR MORE INFORMATION

 

References

Prinz, R. J., Blechman, E. A., and Dumas, J. E. (1994).  An evaluation of peer-coping skills training for childhood aggression.  Journal of Clinical Child Psychology, 11, 193-203.

 

Program categorized in this guide according to the following:

Evaluated participant ages: grades 1-3 / Program age ranges in the Guide: mid-childhood

Program components: school-based

Measured outcomes: social and emotional health and development, life skills, and behavioral problems

 KEYWORDS: Behavioral Problems, Aggression, 1st Grade, 2nd Grade, 3rd Grade, Skills Training, Life Skills Training, School-based, Elementary School, African American or Black, Hispanic or Latino, Social/Emotional Health and Development, Middle Childhood (6-11), Life Skills Training, High-Risk

Program information last updated 11/13/06

 

© Child Trends 2003