Our Research

Three independent research studies have reflected the highly effective treatment from the Quest program.

 2009 Lisa Greenberg, PhD Doctoral Research
Quest was found to provide effective individualized treatment for children 6 to 18 years old with mild to moderate behavioral, emotional and/or social problems.

Strong, Effective Treatment

The results from Lisa Greenberg’s study demonstrated treatment benefits rarely seen in psychological programs. Children who come to Quest struggling to make friends, handling frustration and conquering their fears, leave with increased self-esteem and improved peer and family relationships.

Their fears and frustrations are reduced and behavioral problems become less influential in their lives. In the research study, gains were found across diagnostic, ethnic, age, income, medication status and gender groups and across clinical importance measures, including reliable change, clinical equivalence, effect size, and global impairment indices.

Quest Therapeutic Camp demonstrates large effects in improving overall functioning in different settings and medium effect sizes in reducing problem behaviors and improving social skills based on parent and counselor report.

2015

Parent Report of Aggression and Social Problems

Children who come to Quest struggling to make friends, handling frustration and conquering their fears, leave with increased self-esteem and improved peer and family relationships.

Their fears and frustrations are reduced and behavioral problems become less influential in their lives. In the research study, gains were found across diagnostic, ethnic, age, income, medication status and gender groups and across clinical importance measures, including reliable change, clinical equivalence, effect size, and global impairment indices.

Quest Therapeutic Camp demonstrates large effects in improving overall functioning in different settings and medium effect sizes in reducing problem behaviors and improving social skills based on parent and counselor report.

The results presented above indicated that a positive increase in reciprocal conversation was observed among campers in both the younger and middle camp groups. These results lend support to the effectiveness of the interventions and programming offered by Quest Therapeutic Camps of Southern California on the improvement of social skills, as represented by the observation of reciprocal conversation behavior with peers. These results are also consistent with a previous study of the Quest program that found positive changes in campers’ social responsiveness, based on parents completing measures prior to the intervention and post-intervention. In this study of 47 campers, Quest campers were rated by parents to improve on the Social Responsiveness Scale (SRS-2) in social awareness (ability to observe social cues), social cognition (ability to interpret social cues), and social communication (ability to communicate socially), while also improving in overall social responsiveness.

​

2018

Strong Improvement in Overall Functioning, Attitude, Social Awareness, Social Interactions and Emotional Functioning

Counselor Ratings were compiled in the summer of 2018 for Quest’s Bay Area program and analyzed by Peter Gillette, Ph.D, of the Schwab Dyslexia and Cognitive Diversity Center and Institute of Human Development, U.C. Berkeley. Based on our Camper Evaluation form, Dr. Gillette analyzed five major areas identified: Overall Functioning, Attitude, Social Awareness, Social Interactions and Emotional Functioning.

Results reflected a strong treatment effect in all areas when looking at the difference between baseline and 2 week rating and 2 to 4 week ratings. Differences between 4 and 6 week ratings typically were not significant, indicating that the therapeutic effect was most significant in the first four weeks of attendance. While the ANOVA results for the “Partial Eta Squared” above 0.1 are considered a “large effect”, counselor ratings reflected an effect significantly above this level, indicating the summer program provided significant treatment for children with mild to moderate emotional and social problems.