Since an earlier study examined the immediate effects on foster-care children of the school readiness phase of the KITS Program, the current study examined the longer-term effects of both phases of the KITS intervention for foster children, focusing on classroom oppositional and aggressive behaviors at the end of the kindergarten year.
The KITS Program was designed to be a focused, short-term intervention to increase school readiness prior to kindergarten entry and to promote better subsequent school functioning for children in foster care. KITS features a 16-week group-based school readiness curriculum for children and groups for caregivers. The school readiness phase of KITS (about two-thirds of the curriculum) occurs in the 2 months before kindergarten entry. It involves child play groups that meet twice weekly, along with caregiver groups that meet twice monthly. The transition/maintenance phase of KITS occurs in the first 2 months of kindergarten. In this phase, children meet once a work for play groups, and the caregivers continue to meet twice monthly. The goal of this phase is to support a positive transition to school. An important feature of the KITS Program is its focus on self-regulatory skills in children. The hypothesis tested in the current study was that participating foster-care children who had been randomly assigned to receive the intervention would experience lower rates of problem behaviors than peers who had not received the intervention. The study controlled for baseline levels of the behaviors, child gender, and level of disruptiveness of all students in the classroom. A total of 192 foster-care children and their caregivers participated in a randomized efficacy trial of the KITS Program. The evaluation findings suggest that the KITS Program may be an effective means of preventing disruptive classroom behavior for children at high risk for school maladjustment. 2 tables, 1 figure, and 43 references