As awareness of the so-called "achievement gap" has deepened, much thought has been invested in how to help children growing up in adverse circumstances meet their potential. In this Grand Rounds presentation from November 4, 2011, the CSC's own Laurie Miller Brotman, Ph.D., discusses ParentCorps, an intervention she helped pioneer at the CSC that holds great promise for these children.

Dr. Brotman and her team have shown that ParentCorps, which provides support and teaches positive parenting skills to families of high-risk preschoolers, can dramatically reduce academic failure and behavioral problems such as aggression, and improve relationships with peers. Basic techniques including a focus on warmth, bonding, and consistent use of non-corporeal discipline, applied when children are young, can reap huge rewards over the years; by the time they are teens, kids have lower dropout and delinquency rates and lower rates of obesity.

Above, you can watch the video of Dr. Brotman's full presentation, entitled "ParentCorps: Helping Young Children Succeed." Read more about ParentCorps.

Dr. Brotman is Director of the Institute for Prevention Science; and Corzine Family Professor of Child and Adolescent Psychology and Psychiatry, Department of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry at NYU Langone Medical Center.

You can see more videos from the NYU Child Study Center's expert clinicians and Grand Rounds speakers at the NYU CSC YouTube channel.