Translating Models of Adolescent Problem Behavior into Effective Intervention: Trials, Tribulations and Future Directions

This chapter provides a historical overview of a program of research designed, first, to test empirically developmental models of antisocial behavior and, second, to use these models to design and test innovative prevention strategies. The ecological approach to family intervention and treatment (EcoFIT) model renders intervention model as more effective, efficient and less expensive in the effort to both prevent and treat problem behavior in children and adolescents. Several studies have revealed that teachers generally tend to not only rate ethnic minority students negatively on measures of personality, behavior, motivation to learn, and classroom performance, but they also report lower academic expectations for them and treat minority students less favorably than they treat European American students. It is also unethical to provide family interventions with a monocultural bias.