The Effectiveness of Cognitive-Behavioral Social Skills Training (CBSST) on Reducing Symptoms of Students with Externalizing Behavior Disorders

Given the emphasis the specialists put on the necessity of mental health interventions for elementary school children as a primary prevention, and also their focus on the treatment and development of mental health, the present research aims to study the effectiveness of cognitiveـbehavioral social skills training on reducing symptoms of students with externalizing behavioral disorders. This was an experimental research with a pre-test and post-test design, with a two-month follow-up period. The statistical population included all female elementary school students with externalizing behavior disorders studying at 5th and 6th grades in Langarud city in the educational year 2012-2013. Using multi-stage cluster sampling method, 30 subjects were selected and randomly assigned into the two experiment and control groups. The Child Behavior Checklist (CBCL) was used to evaluate the rate of externalizing behavioral disorders in students. The Walker Social Skills Curriculum was presented in 17 sessions during two months to the experiment group. The data were analyzed using repeated measures/mixed-model ANOVA and the Bonferroni test. The results showed that there was a significant difference between the rate of symptoms of externalizing behavior disorders in both control and experiment groups during post-test and follow-up stage. Moreover, social skill training with cognitive-behavioral approach proved to be an effective intervention in reducing the symptoms of externalizing behavior disorders.