Strategies for Helping Early School-Aged Children with Oppositional Defiant and Conduct Disorders: The Importance of Home-School Partnerships

This article provides a brief review of the diagnosis, developmental progression, and etiology of oppositional defiant and early-onset conduct disorders (ODD/CD) in children. Family and school behavioral programs for helping these children are described as well as their research evaluations and a discussion of the factors related to their success or failure. Studies indicate that there are many promising and innovative interventions for helping reduce and prevent the further development of conduct disorders in young children. The preschool and early school grades appear to be a particularly strategic time for early identification and intervention/prevention programs to facilitate children's social competence and conflict resolution skills. However, the most successful programs will be those which target multiple symptoms of ODD/CD across risk factors, multiple settings (home and school), and agents (parents, teachers, and children). Active partnerships between parents and schools must take place for this to be effective.