Definitions Disruptive Behavior Disorders

Adolescents with disruptive behavior disorders lack skills needed to demonstrate prosocial behavior. Sport is a therapeutic recreation (TR) context in which adolescents may learn prosocial behavior; however, sport alone does not assure that prosocial behavior will be learned. To promote learning of prosocial behavior, TR specialists leading sport activities may consider a prosocial behavior program to augment the sport activities. The purpose of this paper is to describe a TR program designed to increase prosocial behavior skills demonstrated by adolescents with disruptive behavior disorders within a sport context. To achieve this purpose, disruptive behavior disorders and prosocial behaviors are defined, and an examination of social learning theory is presented to illustrate how prosocial behavior skills are developed. Sport as a forum for teaching prosocial behavior is then introduced, followed by a discussion of TR, prosocial behavior and sport