UA Psychologists Receive Grants to Expand ‘Coping Power’ Research

TUSCALOOSA, Ala. — The University of Alabama Center for Prevention of Youth Behavior Problems recently received a pair of grants totaling more than $2.2 million to expand Coping Power, a children’s behavioral therapy program co-designed by Dr. John Lochman, a UA professor.

Lochman, professor of psychology and director of the Center for Prevention of Youth Behavior Problems, will serve as principal investigator on a four-year, $1.5 million grant to test the efficacy of his Early Adolescent Coping Power program, tested extensively with elementary school-aged children, with 720 at-risk seventh-grade youth and their caretakers in Virginia and Alabama.

The grant is a sub-award from a larger grant awarded by the Institute for Education Sciences to the University of Virginia.

Dr. Caroline Boxmeyer, associate professor in the department of psychiatry and behavioral medicine at The University of Alabama College of Community Health Sciences, will serve as principal investigator on a three-year, $700,000 grant project in which Coping Power strategies will be combined with mindfulness training elements, like meditation and yoga, to reduce reactive aggression and future drug abuse in youths.

The project is funded by the National Institute of Drug Abuse.

“Unlike the kind of intervention work we do with elementary children, and in my experience working with middle and high-schoolers, we find it’s a turbulent time for them, and it’s hard to see intervention effects,” Lochman said. “This is a great opportunity to see if this new approach produces key changes in externalizing behavior, reducing risk for violence and substance abuse, and produces a better education outcome.”

The Center has five active grants totaling more than $9 million.

Lochman co-created the Coping Power program while he was at Duke University. Key elements of the program include the children setting personal, pro-social goals across time, and the tracking and monitoring of those goals. A point system is used to reinforce positive behavior and motivate the children.

Interventionists also help the children recognize the emotional states they experience, like sadness and fear, then help them manage their anger by noticing the triggers of anger and practicing relaxation methods.

“Then, with the kids, we do a lot of role playing,” Lochman said. “We’ll have the kids practice handling strong feelings and difficult situations with puppets, in a group or one on one. They’ll practice noticing how they feel, and what kind of strategies the puppets can use to stay calm.

“Then, we graduate to live role play. We want to move toward things more realistic, so the next time they find themselves in a real-life situation that triggers anger, they can handle it. It’s similar to exposure therapy for anxiety, but for managing anger.”

The UA College of Arts and Sciences researcher has traveled to countries like Greece, The Netherlands, Italy, Sweden, Canada and Portugal to help child-behavior experts implement the Coping Power program.

Lochman’s latest study will include new sections on helping adolescents restore damaged relationships and handling cyber-bullying.

His study will include participants from 20 middle schools in Tuscaloosa City, Bessemer, Hale County, Shelby County and Jefferson County schools, and 20 more in the Baltimore, Maryland area.

“We have a study we published two years ago where we found the elementary-school version of Coping Power did produce better academic outcomes than children who don’t have an intervention,” Lochman said. “This is a good example of how we start from this cognitive behavioral program that’s already effective, then think of how we can make the program extend its reach or think about how it can be adapted and made effective in other ways.”

The addition of meditation and mindfulness techniques could bolster the Coping Power curriculum, as Boxmeyer, in collaboration with Dr. Shari Miller-Johnson of Duke University, will test the effectiveness of yoga and mindfulness techniques with at-risk youth from 100 families and four schools.

“We think we can enhance the Coping Power program’s effects on emotion regulation by incorporating these strategies, which have been proven to enhance self-regulation,” Boxmeyer said. “This project provides a nice opportunity to blend our expertise implementing Coping Power with Shari’s expertise implementing mindfulness and yoga.

“Shari brought the idea to us, and we were enthusiastic about it because we could see the potential for enhancing effects of the existing Coping Power program.

“As a practicing clinician, I’ve seen the benefits of mindfulness, which is a way of focusing your attention on the present moment, noticing how your body is feeling and what is on your mind, and practicing awareness and acceptance of those thoughts and feelings rather than judging them. We’ll work on building that practice with children.”