Comparative effectiveness of behavioral and relationship group treatment in the secondary prevention of school...

The prediction that behavioral intervention would be more effective and efficient than relationship intervention after 10 weeks of treatment was supported by teachers' ratings of the classroom adjustment of 119 children in first, second, and third grades. Children in the behavioral groups improved most, followed by children in the relationship groups, followed, in turn, by a group of untreated controls who did not change over time. Furthermore, more children were successfully terminated from the behavioral program than from the relationship program after 10 weeks. Program terminators in each intervention maintained their treatment gains over a 4-month follow-up period. Generally, however, each intervention was more successful for children with moderate rather than severe school maladjustment, and the more maladjusted children showed relatively modest improvement in classroom behavior even with additional treatment.