Seattle Social Development Project: Preventing Delinquency Among Low-Income Children

The authors discuss the Seattle Social Development Project which focuses on preventing delinquency among low-income children. The SSDP followed a group of multi-ethnic, urban students who entered Seattle schools in 1981. The project tested an intervention designed to reduce the risk factors that lead to academic failure, drug abuse and crime among children of poverty. It combined modified teaching practices in mainstream classrooms, child social skills training, and developmentally adjusted parent training.

The strategies were designed to reduce risk while enhancing protection by creating opportunities, skills, and reinforcements for children in both classrooms and families. A number of statistically significant differences were found between the intervention and control groups in both the low-income female and male samples at the end of Grade 6. However, the results differed for females and males.

Editor's Note: Don't miss our more recent issue, Preventing Juvenile Delinquency, printed in 2008.