The American Psychological Association (APA) Division 7 (Developmental Psychology), which is holding its annual meeting this weekend in Boston (MA, US), will recognize Gerald R. Patterson with the Urie Bronfenbrenner Award for Lifetime Contribution to Developmental Psychology in the Service of Science and Society. The award will, no doubt, be based on Jerry’s extensive and sound research on the nature, causes, and treatment of anti-social behavior in families.
According to Web site for Developmental Psychology Division of APA,
The award is for an individual whose work has, over a lifetime career, contributed not only to the science of developmental psychology, and who has also worked to the benefit of the application of developmental psychology to society. The individual’s contributions may have been made through advocacy, direct service, influencing public policy or education, or through any other routes that enable scientific developmental psychology to better the condition of children and families.
This is a wonderfully well-deserved honor for Jerry. I was very fortunate to have the opportunity to work with Jerry and his colleagues for a couple of years during my graduate studies; I learned as much about research from hanging around that operation as I did from many of my formal classes combined. His work has influenced many other researchers and clinicians as well as having a direct, beneficial effect on children and youths and their families. Learn more about Jerry and his collaborators’ research at the Oregon Social Learning Center Web site. Also, see Division 7’s Web page about the Bronfenbrenner Award.
Wednesday Social Programs that Work, an organization dedicated to , recognized the Multidimensional Treatment Foster Care (MFTC) program as having strong evidence of its benefits for youths who have many strongly delinquent behavior problems. The developers of the MTFC program include Patricia Chamberlain, Ph.D., John Reid, Ph.D., Philip A. Fisher, Ph.D., and Gerard Bouwman; they are closely associated with the Oregon Social Learning Center (a long-time resident of EBD Blog’s Web resources list). Over the last ~10 years the researchers have conduct multiple randomized clinical trials testing the intervention, and they have consistently found positive outcomes for the youths and their families.
Multidimensional Treatment Foster Care (A foster care intervention for severely delinquent youths)
Randomized controlled trials show sizable reductions in youths’ criminal activity.
Description of the intervention: The Multidimensional Treatment Foster Care program provides severely delinquent youths with foster care in families trained in behavior management, and emphasizes preventing contact with delinquent peers. Typical community treatment for such youth, by contrast, often involves referral to a group care facility with other troubled youth.
As an example of the program’s behavior management techniques, foster parents track and regulate the youths’ behaviors using a point system, with youths receiving points for positive behaviors (e.g., completing chores, attending school regularly), and losing points for negative behaviors (e.g., not completing homework, or not listening to an adult). As youths accumulate more points, they are afforded more freedom from adult supervision.
The program provides the youths and their families with individual and family therapy during their participation in the program, and program case managers closely supervise the youths/families through daily phone calls and weekly foster parent group meetings. The average length of stay in the program is 6-7 months. The average cost is about $3,600 per month (2008 dollars), which is 30 to 50 percent lower than the cost of residential group care (the typical alternative treatment, in which youths are placed in group homes with other offenders, and often provided family therapy.)
Over on Behavior Mod Info I have a post about an article in the New York Times that discusses uses of management procedures such as physical restraint that I think are rarely justified. Of course, many of the students with whom educators have used these techniques are students with Emotional and Behavioral Disorders. Link to the entry.
Here’s a description of a highly touted intervention.
[Method X] is recognized worldwide as a general method to reinforce the body’s protective abilities for people of all ages who suffer from various disorders and pre-illness conditions, i.e. practically healthy people.
[Method X] involves the organized interaction between [therapy agent] and person, with optimal conditions to offer benefits to the person as well as the [therapy agent].
 [Method X] can assist in the following tasks:
- Correction of psychological development for people with nervous system disorders
- Development of cognitive activity for people with psycho-neurological disorders
- Development of children’s speech
- Removal of chronic pain
- Reduction of neurological and vegetative-vascular reactions
- Relief from psychosomatic conditions
- Reduction of unintentional movements, tics and spasms
- Rehabilitation of people, victims of violence or other stressful situations
- Psycho-emotional training for specialists whose work is connected with extremely stressful situations
- Leisure and relaxation for healthy people – children and adults
The main component of [Method X] is the psychological effect from the interaction between [the client] and [the therapy assistant] in an unaccustomed environment and the physical therapy effect from [Y and Z] made by these [therapists].
Would you want to use this therapy for yourself or your child?
I would! But, that’s because I know what the therapy is.
The paper mail included a copy of Focal Point, the periodical from the Research and Training Center (RTC) on Family Support and Children’s Mental Health at Portland (OR, US) State University. As usual, it includes many worthwhile articles. It reminded me that I should reminder readers of EBD Blog about the RTC.
Today is the official launch of the Consortium to Prevent School Violence (CPSV). The consortium will provide many resources including fact sheets, research summaries, training resources, and more.
The Consortium to Prevent School Violence (CPSV) seeks to promote the effective implementation of school violence prevention practices that are:
Based in high-quality scientific research
Proven to prevent and reduce school violence
Following the school shootings of Fall 2006, a group of 20 researchers and practitioners in the field of school violence prevention collaborated on the creation of a position statement on the school shootings. In the process, it became apparent that an alliance of researchers and practitioners in school violence prevention to further the common goal of reducing school violence would be highly valuable.
Latest Comments
RSS