British Replication with Deaf and Hearing-Impaired Children

A replication using a quasi-experimental design (waiting list control schools) was completed by Dr. Peter Hindley and colleagues at St. Georges Hospital in London (Hindley, Reeds, Jeffs, & McSweeney, 1998; Hindley & Reed, 1999). This project involved 55 children in eight primary schools for deaf children and primary Hearing Impaired Units (HIU’s) in the South of England. The PATHS^® curriculum was adapted for British culture and the following components were implemented in Year 1: The Turtle Unit, the majority of the Feelings and Relationships Unit, and selected lessons from the Problem Solving Unit.

Results comparing the intervention and control children after one year indicated that there was a significant difference between the two groups in both emotional understanding and behavior. On all three measures that evaluated the children’s ability to accurately recognize and label emotions, the intervention group showed a significantly more rapid rate of development. Social-emotional adjustment (as assessed by teacher report) showed no group differences prior to intervention. Following one year of PATHS^® implementation, however, significant differences emerged with intervention children receiving higher scores on measures of self-image and emotional adjustment.