Description of the Strategy

In a variety of clinical, educational, and residential treatment settings, adolescents exhibiting oppositional defiant and conduct disorders show patterns of irritability and aggressive behavior, including anger outbursts, that result in poor conflict resolution, poor interpersonal skills, and a host of compliance problems. Although behavior modification interventions that use a combination of contingency management and punishment strategies have been successfully implemented to reduce occurrences of aggressive behavior in a controlled setting, these approaches are somewhat limited. Often, when the adolescent returns to the natural environment and is outside the control of the contingencies and the purview of adults, the aggressive behavior returns. Problems with maintenance and generalization of behavior change indicate that aggression management self-control skills are not being learned.