©iStockphoto.com/mamahoohooba

      Description

      Diana was born to swim. Her mother was an Olympic athlete whose relay medley team won the bronze medal in Atlanta. Today, Diana’s mother is the head swim coach at a Division II college in Diana’s hometown. Although Diana’s father was not a swimmer, he was a Division I baseball player who currently works as a personal trainer. Diana also has two older sisters who earned college scholarships for swimming and diving, respectively.

      Diana was a healthy baby who enjoyed all of the benefits of a health-conscious family. Her father, who studied nutrition in college, was extremely conscientious about his family’s eating habits. Diana and her sisters ate a largely vegetarian diet and received excellent medical care. Her mother decorated Diana’s room in an aquatic theme: blue walls, fish-patterned bedsheets, an octopus pillow, and a dolphin nightlight.

      Diana began taking swim lessons at the age of 18 months. She was more agile in the pool than on land. Her mother would swim with her and her sisters several times per week. Diana also attended her older sisters’ swim lessons and, later in her childhood, she would also attend their swim meets.

      Diana began to swim competitively at the age of 5 for a summer aquatic league. By the time she was 7, she was swimming year-round for a 10-and-under recreational team at the YMCA and winning many of her events. One of the coaches recognized her raw talent and invited her to join his travel team that practiced at the local college. Diana joined the team several months later, practiced 5 days per week, and received individual lessons from the head coach.

      Diana swam on the varsity team during her freshman year of high school. She excelled in all events, especially the butterfly. Diana bonded with other girls on the team and had success in the pool and in the classroom.

      Now 17-year-old Diana is beginning her final year as a high school swimmer. A shoulder injury sustained in a car accident earlier in the year slowed down her stroke and probably eliminated her chances of a Division I scholarship. However, Diana has visited several Division III schools with excellent swimming programs that would provide her with a good education and an opportunity to swim competitively for 4 more years. “Swimming’s not the only thing important in my life, but it’s a major part of it,” Diana said. “I can’t imagine giving it up just yet.”

      Discussion Questions

      Reference

      Scarr, S., & McCartney, K. (1983). How people make their own environments: A theory of genotype environment effects. Child Development, 54, 424–435.

      This case study accompanies the textbook: Weis, R. (2021). Introduction to abnormal child and adolescent psychology (4th ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Answers appear in the online instructor resources. Visit https://sagepub.com.

      3 Research Methods With Children and Families

      Case Study: When Helping Hurts (Research Methods)

      Many years ago, researchers conducted one of the most ambitious studies designed to investigate whether we could prevent juvenile delinquency in at-risk youths. The research project was funded by a retired professor of social ethics and medicine named Richard Cabot. Dr. Cabot believed that children and adolescents develop behavior problems because they lack prosocial role models in their lives. He believed that at-risk youths could be “steered away from delinquency if a devoted individual outside his own family gives him consistent emotional support, friendship, and guidance” (McCord, 2010, p. 33).

      To test this hypothesis, researchers recruited over 500 boys from Cambridge and Somerville, two densely populated, low-income neighborhoods near Boston. Many of the boys were identified by teachers as exhibiting conduct problems. At-risk boys without behavior problems were also recruited for the study to prevent stigma associated with participation.

      The researchers matched boys based on certain characteristics that might predict their likelihood of delinquency, such as their intelligence, level of aggression, home environment, and parents’ use of discipline. Then, the researchers randomly assigned one boy from each pair to a treatment group and the other boy to a control group.

      Each boy in the treatment group was assigned a social worker who served as his mentor. Mentors met with each boy approximately twice every month: helping him with his homework, taking him to the YMCA or other activities, assisting him in finding a job, or engaging in sports or games. Mentors also worked with boys’ families to help them improve the quality of family life. Boys in the treatment group were also allowed to attend a free summer camp with other boys in the program.

      Description

      Figure 1 ■ Outcomes of the Cambridge–Somerville Youth Study

      Note: Although therapeutic summer camps were designed to help at-risk youths, boys who attended these camps multiple times were more likely than other boys to have unfavorable outcomes later in life (Dishion et al., 1999).

      Boys in the control group received no special assistance, although they could seek treatment as usual in the community. The Cambridge-Somerville Youth Study lasted 5 years and was the first large-scale randomized controlled study investigating the effects of a psychosocial intervention on children.

      Initial results were disappointing. Despite 5 years of mentoring, boys in the treatment group did not show better outcomes than the controls. Nevertheless, researchers remained optimistic that boys who received the treatment would fare better as adults.

      Thirty years later, Joan McCord examined the long-term effects of the program. Amazingly, she was able to track down 98% of the boys who participated