Preventive Treatment Program (PTP)
BPP12
1999 (Updated 08/2006)
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Program Overview:
The program is designed to prevent antisocial behavior of boys who display early, problem behavior. It provides training for both parents and youth to decrease delinquency, substance use, and gang involvement.
Program Targets:
The intervention has been successfully implemented for white, Canadian-born males, ages 7-9, from low socioeconomic families, who were assessed as having high levels of disruptive behavior in kindergarten.
Program Content:
The Preventive Treatment Program combines parent training with individual social skills training. Parents receive an average of 17 sessions that focus on monitoring their children’s behavior, giving positive reinforcement for prosocial behavior, using punishment effectively, and managing family crises. The boys receive 19 sessions aimed at improving prosocial skills and self-control. The training is implemented in small groups containing both disruptive and non-disruptive boys, and it utilizes coaching, peer modeling, self-instruction, reinforcement contingency, and role playing to build skills.
Program Outcomes:
Evaluations of the program have demonstrated both short- and long-term gains for youth receiving the intervention.
At age 12, three years after the intervention:
- Treated boys were less likely to report the following offenses: trespassing, taking objects worth less than $10, taking objects worth more than $10, and stealing bicycles.
- Treated boys were rated by teachers as fighting less than untreated boys.
- 29% of the treated boys were rated as well-adjusted in school, compared to 19% of the untreated boys.
- 22% of the treated boys, compared to 44% of the untreated boys, displayed less serious difficulties in school.
- 23.3% of the treated boys, compared to 43% of the untreated boys, were held back in school or placed in special education classes.
At age 15, those receiving the intervention were less likely than untreated boys to report:
- Gang involvement;
- Having been drunk or taken drugs in the past 12 months;
- Committing delinquent acts (stealing, vandalism, drug use); and
- Having friends arrested by the police.
References
Tremblay, R.E., Masse, L., Pagani, L., & Vitaro, F. (1996). From Childhood Physical Aggression to Adolescent Maladjustment: The Montreal Prevention Experiment. In R.D. Peters & R.J. McMahon (Editors), Preventing childhood Disorders, Substance Abuse, and Delinquency (pp. 268-298). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications.
Tremblay, R.E., Vitaro, F., Bertrand, L., LeBlanc, M., Beauchesne, H., Bioleau, H., & David, L. (1992). Parent and Child Training to Prevent Early Onset of Delinquency: The Montreal Longitudinal Experimental Study. In J. McCord, & R.E. Tremblay (Editors), Preventing Antisocial Behavior: Interventions from Birth through Adolescence (pp. 117-138). New York, NY: The Guilford Press.
Tremblay, R.E., McCord, J., Bioleau, H., Charlebois, P., Gagnon, C., LeBlanc, M., & Larivee, S. (1991). Can Disruptive Boys be Helped to Become Competent? Psychiatry, 54, 149-161.
Contact PTP
PREVENTIVE TREATMENT PROGRAM (PTP) |
| For general program information, contact: |
| Richard E. Tremblay, Ph.D. Groupe de recherche sur l'inadaptation psychosociale chez l'enfant (GRIP) Axe de recherche sur le développement cognitif et psychosocial (ADCP) Université de Montréal 3050 boul. Édouard-Montpetit, local A-210 Montreal, Quebec Canada H3T 1J7 Phone: (514) 343-6963 Fax: (514) 343-6962 Email: grip@umontreal.ca Website: www.gripinfo.ca |
