The Prepare Curriculum: Teaching ProSocial Skills: Productive Intervention Strategies

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The Prepare CurriculumTeaching Pro-Social
SkillsProductive Intervention Strategies

• Mark Amendola, L.C.S.W.
• Robert Oliver, Ed.D.

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The Prepare Curriculum

• Skillstreaming
• Anger Control Training
• Moral Reasoning Training
• Problem-Solving Training
• Empathy Training
• Situational Perception Training
• Stress Management Training
• Cooperation Training
• Recruiting Supportive Models
• Understanding and Using Groups

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Skillstreaming Procedures

• Modeling
• (Skill Demonstration by Trainers)
• Role-Playing
• (Skill Rehearsal by Youth)
• Performance Feedback
• (By Trainers and All Youth in Group)
• Generalization Training
• (To Increase Both Transfer and Maintenance)

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Social Neuro ScienceJohn Cacioppo Gary
Bertston

• .our social interactions play a role in
  re-shaping our brain through neuroplasticity..
• .our repeated experiences sculpt the shape, size
  and number of neurons and their synaptic
  connectedness.

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Skillstreaming the AdolescentGroup I Beginning
Social Skills

• Listening
• Starting a Conversation
• Having a Conversation
• Asking a Question
• Saying Thank You
• Introducing Yourself
• Introducing Other People
• Giving a Compliment

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Skillstreaming the AdolescentGroup II Advanced
Social Skills

• Asking for Help
• Joining In
• Giving Instructions
• Following Instructions
• Apologizing
• Convincing Others

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Skillstreaming the AdolescentGroup III Skills
for Dealing with Feelings

• Knowing your Feelings
• Expressing Your Feelings
• Understanding the Feelings of Others
• Dealing with Someone Elses Anger
• Expressing Affection
• Dealing with Fear
• Rewarding Yourself

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Skillstreaming the AdolescentGroup IV Skills
Alternatives to Aggression

• Asking for Permission
• Sharing Something
• Helping Others
• Negotiation
• Using Self-Control
• Standing Up for Your Rights
• Responding to Teasing
• Avoiding Trouble with Others
• Keeping Out of Fights

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Skillstreaming the AdolescentGroup V Skills
Dealing with Stress

• Making a Complaint
• Answering a Complaint
• Being a Good Sport
• Dealing with Embarrassment
• Dealing with Being Left Out
• Standing up for a Friend
• Responding to Persuasion
• Responding to Failure
• Dealing with Contradictory Messages
• Dealing with an Accusation
• Getting Ready for a Difficult Conversation
• Dealing with Group Pressure

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Skillstreaming the AdolescentGroup VI Planning
Skills

• Deciding on Something to Do
• Deciding What Caused a Problem
• Setting a Goal
• Deciding on Your Abilities
• Gathering Information
• Arranging Problems by Importance
• Making a Decisions
• Concentrating on a Task

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Goals of Anger Control

• To better recognize, understand, and manage
  anger.
• To teach that anger is a natural human emotion
  experienced by everyone.
• To teach self-reflection to clarify our
  motivation for getting angry.
• To increase awareness of thoughts and emotions
  that lead up to anger.

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Multi-Step Sequence

• Trainees are first helped to understand how they
  typically perceive and interpret the behavior of
  others in ways that arouse anger.
• Focus is given to outside occurrences and inner
  perceptions that initiate the anger experience.

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Anger Control Training

• Triggers
• External
• Internal
• Cues
• Reducers
• Reminders
• Self-Evaluation
• Skillstreaming Skill Use

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SITUTAIONAL PERCEPTION TRAINING

• The actual performance of a social skill on a
  particular social context.
• Teaches what did the individual need to do
  (behavioral component) and where, when and with
  whom was it done (situational component).
• Assist with the evaluation of a social setting
  and which specific skill should be utilized.

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Sociomoral Development Delay(Kohlberg, 1984)

• The development of more mature moral cognition
  through experiences of taking the perspectives of
  others.
• Thinking or cognition refers to basic patterns or
  structures of mature or immature thought.

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Why is Mature Moral Judgment Important?

• AS YOU THINK,
• YOU ACT

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Delay in Thought and Behavior

• Antisocial youth show prolonged immaturity in the
  stage of moral judgment.
• They also demonstrate persistent and pronounced
  egocentric bias.

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Moral Reasoning Training

• Dilemma discussion groups designed to teach
  children how to
• Think about moral issues.
• Deal with moral situations that do not have
  clear-cut solutions.
• Use principles of fairness and justice in their
  interactions with others.

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Moral Reasoning Goals

• Increase the moral reasoning stage of the
  trainees.
• Help the trainees use newly learned and more
  advanced reasoning skills in the real world.
  
  

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Four Phases of Social Decision- Making Meetings

• Introducing the Problem Situation

• Cultivating Mature Morality

• Remediating Moral Developmental Delay

• Consolidating Mature Morality

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The Prepare CurriculumProblem-Solving Training

• Session 1 Introduction
• Session 2 Stop and Think
• Session 3 Problem Identification
• Session 4 Gathering Information (Own Perspective)
• Session 5 Gathering Information (Others
  Perspectives)
• Session 6 Alternatives
• Session 7 Evaluating Consequences and Outcomes
• Session 8 Practice

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The Prepare CurriculumEmpathy Training

• Readiness Training
• Acquisition of empathy preparation skills
• Elimination of empathy skill acquisition
  inhibitors
• Perceptual Training
• Situational perception training
• Programmed self-instruction
• Observational sensitivity training
• Peace 4 Kids
• Extension of Aggression Replacement
  Training

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(Empathy Training continued)

• Cognitive Analysis Training
• Discrimination training
• Exposure plus guided practice
• Communication Training
• Didactic-experiential training
• Interpersonal living laboratory
• Relationship enhancement
• Transfer and Maintenance Training

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The Prepare CurriculumStress Management Training

• Progressive Relaxation Training
• Yogaform Stretching
• Breathing Exercises
• Physical Exercise
• Somatic Focusing
• Thematic Imagery
• Meditation

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The Prepare CurriculumCooperation Training

• Cooperative Learning
• Student teams-achievement divisions Jigsaw II
• Teams-games-tournaments Learning together
• Team assisted individualization Group
  investigation
• Jigsaw
• Cooperative Gaming
• Ages 3-7
• Jack-in-the-box name game Partner gymnastics
• Cooperative hide-and-seek Frozen bean bags
• Ages 8-12
• New basketball Tug of peace
• Three-sided soccer All on one side
• Adolescent
• Strike-outless baseball Octopus massage
• Mutual storytelling Brussels sprouts

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Cooperative Gaming

• Everyone who wishes to play can.
• Everyone plays an equal amount of time via use of
  simultaneous games and frequent substitution when
  necessary.
• Everyone has equal opportunity to play each
  position.
• Players compete against own past performance, not
  each other.
• Skill emphasis is on self-improvement.
• No goals are counted, no points awarded, no score
  kept.

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(Cooperative Gaming continued)

• Extrinsic rewards (trophies, awards) are
  deemphasized.
• Cooperative skills are actively encouraged, e.g.,
  all must touch ball before a shot can be taken.
• Multi-ball, multi-goal games are used.
• Individual penalties are not announced to
  minimize reinforcement of attention.
• Expulsion from game is used for deliberate
  attempts to injure another player.

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The Prepare CurriculumUnderstanding and Using
Groups

• Forming
• The warm-up wave!
• Breaking the ice
• Graphics self-disclosure activities
• Being part of the group
• Storming
• Discrimination games
• Trust-level disclosures
• Model-building an intergroup competition

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(Understanding Using Groups continued)

• Norming
• Process observation a guide
• Role nominations a feedback experience
• Choosing new colors
• The gift of happiness experiencing positive
  feedback
• Performing
• Top problems a consensus-seeking task
• Stretching identifying and taking risks
• Line-up and power inversion an experiment
• Adjourning
• Bus ride

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Successful Alternative Schools

• Remedial, not soft jails
• Clear and consistent academic and behavioral
  goals
• Motivated, empathic, and culturally diverse staff
• Responsiveness to individual learning styles
• Small class size
• High performance standards and expectations
• Daily attendance and progress reports
• Full days of study, rigorous workloads
• Continual monitoring and evaluation
• Mandatory student and parent counseling
• Administrative commitment and financial support

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Aggression Reduction Strategies

• Unproductive
• Punishment
• Catharsis
• Cohabitation
• Productive
• Complexity
• Prescriptiveness
• Situationality
• Learned behavior

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Delinquents on DelinquencyPunitive Strategies

• Incarceration
• Harsher incarceration
• Mandatory incarceration
• Longer incarceration
• Sentence youths as adults
• Incarceration of parents
• Incarceration with attack dog

• Life sentences
• Life sentences without food
• Stricter parents and schools
• Involuntary drug rehab
• Curfew
• More gun use by store owners
• House arrest by parents

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Delinquents on DelinquencyRehabilitative
Strategies

• Early adoption of unwanted children
• School Uniforms
• Longer school hours
• Learning how to think
• Classes on delinquency
• Self-esteem groups
• Pictures of the future
• Earlier work permits
• Counseling advertisements

• Closing of housing projects
• Videos of incarcerated youths
• Celebrity campaigns
• Less biased police
• Delinquents as store detectives
• Vans to pick up truants
• Alcohol-free bars and dances
• Psychologists at arcades
• Rewarding nondelinquency

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Consequence Moderator Variables

• Likelihood of Consequence
• Consistency of Consequence
• Immediacy of Consequence
• Duration of Consequence
• Severity of Consequence
• Possibility of escape or avoidance of Consequence
  
• Availability of alternative routes to goal
• Level of instigation to aggression
• Level of reward for aggression
• Characteristics of the prohibiting agents

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Multiple Causes of Aggressive Behavior

• Causes Examples
• Physiological predisposition Male gender, high
  arousal, temperament
• Cultural context Societal traditions and
  mores which encourage/restrain aggression
• Immediate interpersonal Parental/peer
  criminology aggressive models environment
  in movies and on TV
• Immediate physical Temperature, noise,
  crowding, traffic,
• environment pollution
• Personal qualities Self-control, repertoire of
  alternative prosocial values and behaviors
• Disinhibitors Alcohol, drugs, successful
  aggressive models
• Presence of means Guns, knives, other weapons
• Victim characteristics Gender size behavior
  during crime

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Aggression Characteristics of Possible
Prescriptive Relevance

• High Intensity vs Low Intensity
• Proactive vs Reactive
• Overcontrolled vs Undercontrolled
• Early Onset vs Late Onset
• Overt vs Covert vs Authority Conflict

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Prescriptive Intervention by Type of Aggression

• Proactive aggression Reactive aggression
• Object-oriented Person-oriented
• Goal to obtain, dominate Goal to hurt, injure
• Cold-blooded Angry, volatile
• Example mugging Example aggravated assault
• Crimes premeditated Crimes of passion
• Possible interventions Possible interventions
• Consistent punishment for Anger Control
  training
• aggression Empathy training
• Consistent reward for prosocial
• behavior
• Social skills training

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Aggressive Incidents

• Horseplay
• Rules violation
• Disruptiveness
• Refusal/defiance
• Cursing
• Bullying
• Sexual harassment

• Physical Threats
• Vandalism
• Out-of-control behavior
• Student-student fights
• Attacks on teachers
• Use of weapons
• Collective violence

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Contextual Correlates and Causes of Aggression

• There is more aggression
• In schools
• The larger the school
• In the cafeteria, stairwells, and bathrooms
  than in classrooms
• In March than in any other month
• In 7th grade than in any other grade
• With autocratic or laissez-faire school
  administrators than withfirm but fair

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(continued)

• In prisons
• The larger the prison
• The older the prison
• The more the external (in and out) traffic
• The more the internal (within) traffic
• The less the contact between the warden and
  prisoners
• The fewer the number of work assignments
• The less the education of the correctional
  officers

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(continued)

• In sports
• By members of the home team than by the visiting
  team
• When the team is in the middle of its league
  standings
• Later in the game than earlier in the game
• Later in the season than earlier in the season
• Behind the net in hockey near the 50-yard line
  in football

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Corporal Punishment at Home

• Legal in all 50 states
• Applied to 90 of U.S. children
• 56 slapped or spanked
• 31 pushed or shoved
• 10 hit with object
• 3 object thrown at child
• Peak application by age 3 to 4
• Still applied to 25 of U.S. adolescents

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(Corporal Punishment at Home continued)

• Sons hit more than daughters
• Older parents less likely to hit
• Parents hit during adolescence are themselves
  more likely to hit
• Parents who hit each other are more likely to hit

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Corporal Punishment at School

• Legal in 23 states
• Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama highest
• 700,000 instances per year in U.S.
• Disproportionately applied to
• Minority youth/Learning disabled
  youth/Emotionally disturbed youth
• School policy and procedure
• Number of strokes/Intensity of strokes/Size of
  paddle/Presence of a witness/Prior parental
  approval