Practice Profile: Early Self-Control Improvement Programs for Children

Evidence Rating for Outcomes

Crime & Delinquency | Multiple crime/offense types

Juvenile Problem & At-Risk Behaviors | Self-Control

Date: This profile was posted on November 27, 2018

Practice Goals/Target Population

Early self-control improvement programs aim to increase self-control and reduce child behavior problems (e.g., conduct problems, antisocial behavior, and delinquency) in children up to age 10.

Practice Theory

Gottfredson and Hirschi’s (1990) general theory of crime identifies individual characteristics of self-control as related to antisocial, delinquent, and criminal behavior. Specifically, individuals with low self-control 1) are impulsive and unable to delay gratification; 2) lack persistence, tenacity, or diligence; 3) partake in novelty or risk-seeking activities; 4) put little value on intellectual ability; 5) are self-centered; and 6) have a volatile temper. The theory also suggests that interventions implemented during children’s early years (with young children, adolescents, families) are important in preventing general delinquency and crime later in life (Piquero et al. 2016).

Practice Components

While programs designed to increase self-control vary by intervention type, these efforts focus on improving one’s impulse control and strengthening their resolve against impulsive acts. Also, these programs aim to improve the decision-making styles of persons such that they place less emphasis on immediate gratification and more emphasis on the long-term consequences of their behavior.

There are generally five different intervention types of early self-control improvement programs, as follows:

Social skills development programs focus on lessons involving skills for emotional understanding and communication, friendship, self-control, and social problem solving. These programs sometimes include themes such as “look and listen”, “following rules”, “what to do when I am angry”, “what to do when they do not want to play with me”, and “how to react to teasing”.
Cognitive coping strategies involve psychoeducational tasks and/or cognitive self-instructional training where participant children are taught to verbalize commands to cue or guide nonverbal behavior. This program type employs self-control statements such as “find out what I am supposed to do”, “consider all my answers”, “stop and think”, “mark my answer”, and “check my answer” while performing tasks as the child repeats the steps and statements.
Videotape training/role-playing interventions involve participant children watching videos of children performing appropriate or inappropriate behavior. Participants are asked if the children’s responses in the video are correct. If they answer correctly, the video continues. Following the video training, the participants’ behavior and self-control are observed. These interventions may also include didactic lectures, role playing, and watching videos of child-centered play sessions.
Immediate/delayed rewards clinical interventions take place in an experimental room. The intervention involves an experimenter enticing children with a prize (such as marshmallows). Participant children are placed alone in separate rooms and told that if they wait for the experimenter to return to the room (in 20 minutes), they will be allowed to have two marshmallows. However, if they ring the bell that has been placed in front of them (which signals that they want the experimenter to return right away), they will only be allowed to have one marshmallow. The experiment was designed to test children’s self-control and use of delayed gratification.
Relaxation training sessions focus on meditation and deep breathing techniques to encourage children to regulate their own behavior. After practicing the techniques, children are asked to consider three self-monitoring questions: 1) “Where am I?” 2) “What am I doing?” and 3) “What should I be doing?” They are then asked to correct their thoughts and behaviors to conform with what is expected of them.

Meta-Analysis Snapshot
	Literature Coverage Dates	Number of Studies	Number of Study Participants
Meta Analysis 1	1975-2015	41	9382

Meta Analysis 1

Piquero and colleagues (2016) updated an earlier meta-analysis by Piquero, Jennings, and Farrington (2010) on the effects of early self-control improvement programs on increasing self-control and reducing delinquency/crime of children. Screening was conducted from January 2010 through September 2015, extending the original analysis period of 1975 to 2009.

Studies were included if they 1) used randomized controlled experimental designs; 2) included self-control as a major component of the intervention; 3) included participants aged 10 years and younger (or the mean age was no greater than 10 years at the start of the intervention); 4) included at least one child-based outcome measure of self-control such as the Kansas Reflection-Impulsivity Scale for Preschoolers (Wright 1971), the Kendall and Wilcox Self-Control Rating Scale (Kendall and Wilcox 1979), Burks’ (1996) Behavior Rating Scale, and/or behavioral outcome measures of general problem behaviors, such as antisocial behavior and delinquency, from the Child Behavior Checklist (Achenbach and Edelbrock 1983) or the Eyberg Child Behavior Inventory (Funderburg and Eyberg 1989); and 5) made available adequate posttest data to calculate an effect size, if not provided. The search included published and unpublished reports available in English with no timeframe or geographic restrictions. Keyword searches were done for abstracts across several online databases, and hand searches were conducted with reputable journals in the areas of criminology, criminal justice, policing, public policy, psychology, psychiatry, and child development.

This analysis included 41 randomized controlled trial studies, updating the original analysis with 7 additional eligible studies. The 41 studies had a total sample size of 9,382 children and adolescents. A total of 53 self-control effect sizes and 36 delinquency effect sizes were calculated in this analysis. Studies included in the analysis were predominately published in journals, took place in a number of states across the country (e.g., Florida, Georgia, Hawaii, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Washington, and Wisconsin), and were delivered in a school setting. The study samples were mostly male, white, high-risk, and from low-income populations. Participants’ ages ranged from 2 to 10 years.

A random effects analysis was used to estimate overall mean effect size. Cohens d was used to calculate the standardized mean difference effect sizes. When studies did not provide a Cohen’s d effect size estimate, the data that were provided was transformed into a Cohen’s d. Hedges g was applied correcting for small sample sizes small samples. Inverse variance weights were used to give greater weight to the effect sizes estimated with more precision. All meta-analytic results were estimated using Comprehensive Meta-Analysis (CMA) software, Version 2.