A Large-Scale Naturalistic Evaluation of the AIM Curriculum in a Public-School Setting
Daily AIM lessons delivered by regular teachers improved mindfulness, psychological flexibility, and standardized test scores across an entire public school.
01Research in Context
What this study did
Teachers gave one AIM lesson every school day to every student in a public school. AIM stands for Accept, Identify, Move. It teaches kids to notice thoughts and feelings, pick values, and act on them.
The team tracked 318 students for one full year. They checked mindfulness, psychological flexibility, and district test scores before and after the year. No control group was used.
What they found
At the end of the year, kids scored higher on all three measures. Mindfulness, flexibility, and school-wide test scores all moved up compared with the prior year.
How this fits with other research
Enoch et al. (2019) ran an ACT summer camp for neurotypical kids and saw the same flexibility gains. Their RCT gives stronger proof, but only for a short camp. Paliliunas et al. (2018) also found ACT values training lifted grad-student grades. Together, these studies show ACT ideas help across ages and settings.
Tamm et al. (2024) used a similar whole-school group format with autistic middle-schoolers. They targeted executive functions instead of flexibility and still raised academic skills. The pattern shows daily, teacher-led groups can work for different goals and kids.
Humphrey et al. (2013) tested another whole-school program called Achievement for All. It cut behavior problems and bullying for students with SEND. AIM adds a new piece: daily lessons in psychological flexibility rather than parent meetings and tracking.
Why it matters
You can pitch AIM as a low-cost, whole-class tier-one intervention. No extra staff, no pull-outs. One 15-minute lesson a day fits inside normal class time. If your district wants both SEL and test-score gains, these data give you cover to try it. Start with one grade, track mindfulness and flexibility with the same free surveys, and compare baseline test scores to spring.
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02At a glance
03Original abstract
This study evaluated the effectiveness of the AIM curriculum when implemented in a public-school setting by schoolteachers and direct care staff. Three hundred eighteen students took part in this quasiexperimental design where all received the AIM curriculum every day for an entire school year. The participants completed a series of self-assessments (the Avoidance and Fusion Questionnaire for Youth, the Child and Adolescent Mindfulness Measure, and the Strength and Difficulties Questionnaire) at the onset of the study and at the end of the school year to assess psychological flexibility, mindfulness, and emotional behavioral skills. Results suggest that at the end of the school year, participants increased psychological flexibility and mindfulness. State standardized testing scores also showed increases school-wide as compared to the previous 2 years. These results suggest that the AIM curriculum may be effective in large school settings, appeared easy to implement by school staff to address the needs of both the individual student and the entire student body, and likely participated in improving school-wide academic success.
Behavior Analysis in Practice, 2022 · doi:10.1007/s40617-021-00569-5