Promoting social competence and preventing aggression in primary school: an intervention based on social information processing

Social Information Processing interventions (Li et al.,2013) promote children Social Problem Solving (SPS) competence and social skills. Our aim is to test the effectiveness of a SPS training in an Italian context. Participants were 105 children (41 girls, mean age =8,7) who attended six classes in the same school. Project lasted two years. Three classes were assigned to Group1 (N=61), and three classes to Group2. Both groups were tested at T1 (beginning 3rd Class), T2 (end 3rd Class), T3 (beginning 4th Class) and T4 (end 4th Class). Group1 was trained only the first year, in 3rd Class, between T1 and T2. Group2 was trained the second year, in 4th Class, between T3 and T4. In T1, T2, T3 and T4 children filled SPS-Questionnaire (adapted from Schonfeld et al. 2012), and in T3 and T4 they also filled PVA (Physical Verbal Aggression Questionnaire, Caprara et al. 1991). Three two-way mixed ANOVAs were conducted, with groups as between-factor and (1) proportion of SPS-competent responses, (2) SPS-aggressive responses, and (3) PVA as repeated measures, respectively. All the ANOVAs showed an interaction between groups and repeated measures. SPS-competent responses (F1,106=5.10;p=.03) were similar in the two groups at T1; higher in Group1 at T2 and T3, and similar in the two groups at T4, thanks to an increase in Group2. SPS-aggressive responses (F1,106=5.85;p=.02) were similar at T1; lower in Group1 at T2 and T3; and similar in the two groups at T4, due to a decrease in Group2. PVA (F1,106=10.53;p=.002) at T3 was lower in Group1 but grew up during the year, while remained stable in Group2. The improvement of competent responses, the decrease of aggressive responses and the control of aggression in each training year is a promising result, but suggests the need for a longer duration of the intervention, to obtain stable effects.