Early Intervention Key to Helping Children, Study Finds

By Linda Jacobson

An elementary school curriculum that emphasizes conflict resolution, negotiation, and decisionmaking skills can reduce the chances that students will commit violent acts, abuse alcohol, and engage in risky sexual relationships as teenagers, a study released last week says.

And students who participate in such a program are more likely than those who don't to behave better in school, achieve at higher levels, and have a more positive attitude toward school, it says.

Beginning in 1985, researchers evaluated the Seattle Social Development Project, which operated in 18 public schools that served high-crime neighborhoods in the city. More than half the students in the project qualified for...