Newswise — A Pakistani scholar who never before traveled outside her hometown without the accompaniment of an older relative – usually her dad or an older brother – took a 30-hour plane trip by herself so she could spend six months in Tuscaloosa, Ala.
Her motivation? To learn as much as possible about a program co-developed by a University of Alabama psychologist to reduce aggressive behavior in children. The young scholar, Asia Mushtaq, wants to adapt and implement the program upon her return home in an effort to reduce aggression in her country’s elementary schools and, perhaps one day, reduce the violence that plagues her country.
“If we want to minimize the criminal behavior, we have to start with the children and correct this at the initial level,” said Mushtaq, who is working on her doctorate at Quaid-i-azam University in Islamabad, Pakistan.
She received funding from the Higher Education Commission in Pakistan to spend six months working alongside Dr. John Lochman, professor and Saxon Chair of Clinical Psychology at The University of Alabama and director of UA’s Center for the Prevention of Youth Behavior Problems.
Lochman’s behavior modification program, Coping Power, has been tested in dozens of elementary schools and clinics, including schools and youth centers in Alabama, North Carolina, Oregon, New York and Puerto Rico.
Coping Power training has been provided to hundreds of school-based and clinic-based therapists from throughout the United States and from Ireland, Italy, Spain, Germany, and Poland. It has been published in English, Dutch and Spanish.
Animated cartoons that accompany the program have also been created recently.
Mushtaq, who arrived in Tuscaloosa on Oct. 24, plans to return to Pakistan in April and begin implementing aspects of the UA program in 10 schools in Rawalpindi and Islamabad.
Mushtaq said she had read Lochman’s name in her textbooks and first learned of his research about three years ago while studying with her mentor, Dr. Naeem Tariq, former director of Pakistan’s National Institute of Psychology, part of Quaid-i-azam University.
She was first drawn to the field of psychology (which, she said, is still gaining acceptance in Pakistan) as a way of studying criminal behavior.
Later, she began researching social information processing – how young people develop and learn social skills and the resulting impact – and learned of Lochman’s Coping Power program.
Coping Power techniques include an emphasis on seeing other people’s perspective, improving social skills, finding alternatives to deal with conflict, and the use of self-statements, relaxation and distraction techniques to deal with anger.
In the program’s parental component, school staff members meet periodically with parents to discuss ways of improving parenting skills, including establishing age-appropriate rules and expectations for children, ways to reward children for displaying appropriate behavior, and discipline techniques. Parents also learn ways to support their children with their homework responsibilities and tips for solving conflict between siblings and within their families.
Mushtaq says she has already translated many aspects of Lochman’s program into Urdu, the national language for Pakistan, and has made other adaptations reflecting cultural differences.
Boys are significantly more aggressive than girls in Pakistan, and many in her country believe that is at it should be. “If the boys are not aggressive, who will be aggressive?” is the mindset many in her country have, Mushtaq says.
However, Mushtaq says she sees the beginnings of such attitudes changing as suicide bombings and other acts of violence have repeatedly erupted in recent months as the Pakistani military has clashed with Taliban militants.
Mustaq says she has high expectations that Coping Power will be very helpful in reducing aggression and problem behaviors in Pakistani youth. Because Pakistani youth have a high level of respect for school authority and typically comply to “pin drop silence” in the classroom, she says it’s feasible to believe the program could be even more helpful in Pakistan than it has been in the U.S.
The challenge, she says, will not be getting the youth to buy in, but the adults. She does not yet know if she will seek to implement both the school and home components of Coping Power.
“If parents are willing to work with us, then we will add the parental component also – seeking to improve social skills of the parents.”
Outside of her research, Mushtaq says the Americans she has encountered during her visit have been very friendly -- much different from the rude stereotypes she had heard of and expected. And, as for Tuscaloosa? Well, in some ways, she says, it’s much like home.
“It reminds me of Islamabad – green and hilly.”
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