Short-Term Intervention Effects of the PATHS Curriculum in Young Low Income Children: Capitalizing on Plasticity

Introduction

Children in high-poverty neighborhoods are at great risk of deficits and delays in emergent self-regulatory systems due to the effects of adverse conditions, such as maltreatment, malnutrition and environmental deprivation, on the developmental underpinnings of these skills.  In general, children who do not develop effective self-regulatory skills are more likely to demonstrate academic and social failure and to eventually engage in high risk behaviors, such as drug misuse.  Despite evidence to suggest that essential developmental processes are susceptible to environmental inputs, research documenting short-term intervention program influences on these domains in young impoverished children is limited.  The present study focuses on determining the proximal effects of a universal school-based intervention (The PATHS Curriculum) on the social, emotional, relational, and cognitive outcomes in urban poor kindergarten children.

Methods

This study employed a randomized design in which 4 Baltimore City Public elementary schools were randomly assigned to intervention or control.  Schools selected were in highly disadvantaged settings in which school readiness was low and adversity was prevalent. The Preschool/Kindergarten version of the PATHS curriculum was delivered by Kindergarten teachers. An attention control condition in the comparison schools was introduced, involving Professional Development Workshops. Assessments of kindergarten children were administered in the beginning of the fall kindergarten semester and again in the spring for both students and teachers, after about 6 months of PATHS exposure for the intervention schools.  Children were individually assessed with measures of IQ, inhibitory control, emotion regulation, teacher-rated behavior and peer-nominations.

Results

Children who received the PATHS curriculum exhibited significant improvements in behavior, as rated by both teachers and peers showing lower conduct problems and hyperactive symptoms, and increases in social and emotional competence. There were also significant improvements in some areas of executive relative to control children.  Behavioral change was highly significant for all measures included.

Conclusion

This study supports the notion that socio-emotional learning programs that bolster the quality of early childhood education and focus on strengthening cognitive and affective processes that underlie self-regulatory behaviors may exert a relatively immediate and profound influence on behavior in high poverty children.