Violence prevention: Program effects on urban preschool and kindergarten children

This study compares the effectiveness of a violence prevention program with young, at-risk children in two settings. Preschool and kindergarten studen ts, residing in Chicago public-housing developments, participated in a 28-s ession intervention. Knowledge, behavior problems, and social skills were a ssessed at pretest and posttest. based on child interviews, teacher ratings , and behavioral observations. Findings suggest that both preschool and kin dergarten children demonstrated significant gains in knowledge, based on in terview scores, and significant decreases in problem behaviors, based on be havioral observations; however, teacher ratings did not change significantl y across time. The discrepancy in findings is explored and implications are discussed.