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Prevention of Drug Abuse: Examination of the Effectiveness of a Program with Elementary School Children

NCJ Number
127043
Journal
Behavior Therapy Volume: 21 Dated: (1990) Pages: 339-347
Author(s)
P Church
Date Published
1990
Length
9 pages
Annotation
This paper describes an assessment of a drug prevention program for fourth graders in Georgia.
Abstract
One hundred black and caucasian students were grouped into experimental or control groups and were assessed at pre-treatment, post-treatment, and a 2-month follow-up. In three, one-hour sessions, groups of 20 children received basic information about drug use, discrimination between good and bad drugs, addiction, being conned into drug use, and preventive skills. Children in the control group were seen for an equal time by an experimenter, but were taught their regular class lessons. Relative to the control group, the experimental group acquired more information at the post-assessment. The differences between the two groups in this area diminished at follow-up, but difference in application of skills increased at follow-up. The results indicate that elementary school students can be taught basic information concerning drug abuse prevention. 2 tables and 10 references (Author abstract modified)