Conduct Disorders: A Framework for Understanding and Intervention in Schools and Communities

Abstract

Conduct disorder represents a class of chronic antisocial and disruptive behaviors that interfere with effective interaction with the environment. The disorder is relatively common, well-documented, and has proven to be difficult to treat successfully. Reliable correlates can be clustered into personal, family, school, and peer dimensions. Successful interventions may need to address these multiple factors and their interactions, requiring a multidimensional, multifocus, preventive approach that encompasses the child's ecology. Schools and school psychologists may need to abandon traditional placement or exclusion activities and adopt a comprehensive strategy focusing on interagency collaboration and parent involvement and interventions.