The Brain Power Program - The Curriculum

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The BrainPower Program is an intervention for elementary school students that is designed to reduce physically aggressive behavior caused by an attributional bias, or the tendency to see the actions of peers as hostile. The central goal of the intervention is to teach aggressive students to start from a presumption of accidental causes. When a social encounter with a peer results in a negative outcome (a spilled lunch tray, a bump in the lunch line, missing homework, etc.) the child will begin with the assumption that the outcome was due to accidental causes rather than intentional hostility from peers.

However, the curriculum teaches children to clearly distinguish between accidental causes and deliberate intentions to do harm. It would be unwise, even dangerous, to attempt to convince children that all behaviors are benign. Rather the BrainPower Program helps children distinguish accidents from intentional harm, when they are in possible danger, and when they should seek help from others.

This program consists of 12 lessons of about one hour each, plus homework assignments. Materials and activities are appropriate for the upper elementary (3-6) grades. This 12 lesson program comprises three units:

The first unit strengthens children's ability to accurately read and understand the intentions of others. A variety of instructional activities (role play, discussions, unfinished stories, games) teach students to attend to social cues and not jump to predetermined conclusions when they interact with their peers.

After the participants gain some skills in the interpretation of social cues, the second element explains the distinction between accidental, helpful, and hostile behavior. Students are taught to initially define the absence of clear cues (as would be the case when a situation is ambiguous or unclear) as an accidental situation while they gather additional information.

By the third phase of the intervention students have gained some skills in assessing the social scene and competently judging a peer's intent. Now they practice the appropriate behaviors to accompany their new social understanding. Targeted skills include asking adults for help, asking questions, and making requests in a nonaggressive manner.

Lesson 1 - Introduction to the program. Meet the group.
HOMEWORK: Report back on an instance of inappropriate behavior created by not understanding what happened in a social situation.

HOMEWORK: Keep a log of observed mistakes in understanding intent for the next four days.

Lesson 3 - Different kinds of intent. How do we decide?
HOMEWORK: Think about three people (peers, family, teachers) that you know pretty well. Figure out how you can read their nonverbal cues, i.e., signals that tell you when they are angry, happy, excited, worried, etc.

Lesson 4 – Understanding our own feelings.
HOMEWORK: Supply endings for a list of unfinished sentences which describe complex or ambiguous social situations.

Lesson 5 – Examining different types of social clues.
HOMEWORK: Describe two situations in your life when you misjudged intentions. Explain what happened as a result.

Lesson 7 – Understanding Ambiguity in social situations.
HOMEWORK: Using the unfinished story of an ambiguously intended negative outcome, write two endings, one presuming a hostile and the other an accidental intent.

Lesson 8 - controllable (intentional) causes and uncontrollable (unintentional) causes. How do you decide?
HOMEWORK: Using the three stories presented in class, describe the ways that the ambiguous and unintended stories are similar, and how they are different from the intentional story.

Lesson 9 - Internal (personal) causes and. external (situational) causes. Who's at fault?
HOMEWORK: Record three times when things didn't turn out the way you wanted (someone borrowed your pencil and kept it; someone was supposed to meet you after school and never showed up).

Lesson 10 – Finding the correct response in an ambiguous situation.
HOMEWORK: For the next 48 hours, keep track of situations which call for you to respond to something that happens with you and a peer. Decide if you can classify the situation as hostile, prosocial, or accidental.

Lesson 11 – Learning to ask the right questions and get the right answers.
HOMEWORK: Write one situation which really happens between you and a peer in the next two days when something happens that you don't like very much (you get pushed in the lunch line, your friend forgets to call, another student takes your paper). Try at least one of the behaviors discussed in the last session.

The BrainPower Program should be conducted by two group leaders who are competent in small group instruction. Sessions can be convened in any relatively quiet place separated from the regular activities in the classroom or recreation program. The setting should have tables and chairs as well as a blackboard, overhead projector, or some other means of recording and displaying information for the entire group.

Groups of 6-8 students meet two or three times weekly in 60-minute sessions that can be implemented during school hours or in after school programs for a total of 12 sessions. The structure of the sessions should also include some kind of behavior management system. The curriculum recommends a point system in which students earn points for turning in homework and lose points for disruptive behavior in the group.

This intervention is designed for same sex groups; boys and girls should meet in separate small groups. We have found over the course of designing and testing the curriculum that mixed sex groups are more disruptive and accomplish far less than same sex groups. Each group should consist of no more than five excessively aggressive and no less than two average, nonaggressive students. The presence of nonaggressive students serves to: (1) stop the possibility of stigmatizing aggressive participants as “bad” people, (2) give aggressive participants the opportunity to interact with positive peer models, and (3) give nonaggressive students the opportunity to change their attitudes and behaviors directed toward the aggressive students as they progress through the program together. However, each group must have at least two or three nonaggressive youth to buffer these children against negative pressure from their more aggressive peers.

Positive interaction between aggressive students and their peers is considered necessary if program gains are to persist outside the intervention setting. These opportunities for interaction counteract the self-perpetuating effects of a reputation for aggressive behavior. Unfortunately in elementary school, once peers believe that a child has a reputation for highly aggressive outbursts, they tend to reject that child as a playmate. Children who are both aggressive and rejected by their peers tend to be very poorly adjusted in elementary school, both socially and academically.

The curriculum comes in two formats, one for boys’ groups and another for girls’ groups. The lessons and exercises are similarly organized and follow a parallel sequence. The only difference is that the unfinished stories feature either girl or boy protagonists.

The curriculum comes as a .pdf file to download, print out, and place into binders for use by the group leaders. To purchase the curriculum package now, which includes a training procedures manual with background and group organization guides, a teacher’s lesson guide, and prepared handouts for both boys and girls groups click on the buy now button below. If you would like more information on the research evidence that supports the BrainPower program, click here. If you would like to know more about the program designer, Dr. Cynthia Hudley, click here.

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