A School-Based Expressive Writing Intervention for At-Risk Urban Adolescents' Aggressive Behavior and Emotional Lability

• Published in: Journal of clinical child and adolescent psychology Vol. 40; no. 5; pp. 693 - 705
• Main Authors: Kliewer, Wendy, Lepore, Stephen J., Farrell, Albert D., Allison, Kevin W., Meyer, Aleta L., Sullivan, Terri N., Greene, Anne Y.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: England Taylor & Francis Group 01.09.2011; Routledge; Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group
• Subjects: Adolescent; Adolescent Behavior - psychology; Adolescents; Aggression; Aggression - psychology; Aggressiveness; At Risk Students; Behavior Therapy; Black American people; Child & adolescent psychiatry; Community violence; Control Groups; Emotions; Expressive Language; Family Structure; Female; Gender Differences; Grade 7; Humans; Intervention; Male; Neighborhoods; Public schools; Race; Randomized Controlled Trials; Risk-Taking; School based; Schools; Social Environment; Student writing; Treatment Outcome; Urban Areas; Urban Population; Violence; Violence - psychology; Writing; Writing (Composition)
• ISSN: 1537-4416; 1537-4424
• DOI: 10.1080/15374416.2011.597092

This school-based randomized controlled trial tested the efficacy of 2 expressive writing interventions among youth living in high-violence urban neighborhoods. Seventeen classrooms (n = 258 seventh graders; 55% female; 91% African American/Black) from 3 public schools were randomized to 3 conditions in which they wrote 8 times about a nonemotional topic (control condition) or about experiencing and witnessing violence following either a standard or an enhanced expressive writing protocol. Outcomes were assessed 1 month prior and 2 and 6 months postintervention and included teacher-rated emotional lability and aggressive behavior and child-rated physical aggression. Intent-to-treat, mixed-model analyses controlled for preintervention measures of outcomes, sex, race, and family structure. At 2 months postintervention, relative to controls, students in the standard expressive writing condition had lower levels of teacher-rated aggression and lability (d = −.48). The beneficial effects of the writing interventions on aggression and lability were stronger at higher levels of community violence exposure.