Behavior Game Played in Primary Grades Reduces Later Drug-Related Problems

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Awarding smiley-face stickers to teams of first-graders in Baltimore for the good behavior of the individual team members greatly increased the likelihood that the students would experience an adolescence free of substance abuse and dependence. Teachers gave out the stickers and other token rewards and penalties in the Good Behavior Game (GBG), a classroom activity designed to inculcate appropriate behavior during children's first 2 years in school.

"The GBG gives teachers an effective method of managing behavior in the classroom and of teaching children how to be students," says Dr. Sheppard Kellam of the American Institutes for Research in Washington, D.C.

AS THE TWIG IS BENT Young adults who had played the Good Behavior Game in first and second grade were less likely to smoke cigarettes or abuse drugs than those who hadn't played the game. Males whose first-grade teachers identified them as aggressive and disruptive benefited the most.

Dr. Kellam and colleagues began the longitudinal study of the GBG while at Johns Hopkins University in close partnership with the Baltimore City Public School System. Dr. Kellam suggests that the activity produces a broad spectrum of long-term benefits by steering 5- and 6-year-olds away from aggressive and disruptive behaviors, which have long been recognized as precursors of many negative adolescent and adult outcomes. The study found that the GBG was protective not only against substance abuse and dependence but also against teenage delinquency, antisocial personality disorder, and suicide attempts.

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