WITHDRAWN: Abstract of Distinction: Early Growth in Social Competence and Treatment Responsivity to the Fast Track Intervention

Introduction: Over the last few decades, interventions focused on the prevention of antisocial behavior have increasingly targeted the promotion of social-emotional competencies, based on theoretical frameworks underscoring the role that these competencies play in promoting adaptive interpersonal relationships with adults and peers, and fostering school adjustment and employment opportunities that protect youth against trajectories of antisocial behavior. Yet, despite the theoretical basis for this general intervention model, little research has actually explored its purported mechanism of action, that is, whether a preventive intervention’s ultimate effect on antisocial behavior is a result of the intervention’s earlier effect on social competence. The present study addressed this issue in the context of the multi-component Fast Track prevention program, which included universal (PATHS Curriculum) and targeted (Friendship Group) components to build child social-emotional competencies and included longitudinal follow-up through early adulthood. This study explored the extent to which the promotion of early elementary social competence accounted for the positive long-term effects of the Fast Track program on reduced early adult crime.

Methods: Participants were children enrolled in the Fast Track Project, a 10-year multisite program aimed at the prevention of childhood conduct problems. The present sample of 891 participants (51% African-American, 47% European American, 2% other racial/ethnic groups; 69% male) included children in the intervention (n = 445) and control conditions (n = 445), categorized as high-risk due to elevated aggression in kindergarten. Beginning in first grade, children in the intervention condition and their families received universal and indicated intervention components aimed at promoting social-emotional competencies and academic development, and fostering supportive home environments. Data used in this study came from kindergarten through third grade, and five years post-intervention (age 20). Measures included teacher ratings of social competence and court records of early adult criminal behavior.

Results: Individual growth models were used to estimate growth in social competence from kindergarten through third grade. Linear regressions revealed a significant effect of intervention on individual growth in social competence that partially mediated the effect of intervention on early adult crime. Further analyses revealed that the effect of treatment on individual social competence growth was moderated by baseline aggression as well as by baseline social competence and gender. The effect of intervention on social competence growth was stronger for individuals with higher baseline aggression and stronger for girls with lower baseline social competence.

Conclusion: Findings confirm social competence development as a mechanism by which the Fast Track program reduced antisocial behavior by early adulthood. These findings are the first to validate the role of individual social competence growth in the effect of SEL violence-based prevention with implications for intervention implementation including early identification of individual responsivity to treatment.