to the attractions of a deviant life-style that offers easy social affiliation and gratification (e.g., substance use, sexual activity) and allows them to escape from restrictive (often punitive) school demands and behavioral controls (Capaldi et al. 1996; Schofield et al. 2008). Despite Fast Track’s significant intervention impact on the reduction of aggression and promotion of academic skills in elementary school, it appears that the intervention did not substantially change youth vulnerability to the attractions of early adolescent substance use and sexual activity, and hence did not delay the timing of sexual or substance use debut. It is possible that the lack of intervention impact on the timing of early adolescent risk behaviors and risky sex outcomes occurred because the impact on early aggression and learning competencies was too weak to protect youth against the opportunities for deviant peer affiliation in middle school and thereby prevent the negative cascade in adjustment at the transition into middle school. Fast Track effects, while statistically significant, were small to moderate in size, and did not move most youth into “normative” levels of aggression. Alternatively, the negative cascade model, while descriptive, may not be causal. That is, although early aggression may indicate risk for precocious
