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The Role of Preventive Interventions 453The Potential Role of Neurocognitive Functionin Preventive Interventions in AdolescenceIn sum, preventive interventions such as PATHS can take advantage of the timecourse in the morphological development of the frontal lobes. During childhood,the frontal lobes are malleable and proceed through a stage of rapid structuralorganization (Grossman et al., 2003). Thus, there is great potential for preventiveinterventions implemented in the preschool and elementary years to impact theneural substrates controlling such development. However, important changescontinue into adolescence. For example, Luna and Sweeny (2004) reported thatadolescents are as able as adults to suppress a prepotent response, but they areless reliable or consistent at doing so. The implication is that adolescents may notbe as efficient at utilizing frontal skills and likely require greater vigilance forsuccess. Thus, as Keating (2004) has pointed out, context, emotional arousal, andattention are likely to influence the use of frontal abilities such as inhibition andplanning in adolescence. The primary question is not one of cognitive reasoning,nor of estimation of risk; it is using complex executive function in context of highemotional arousal (Steinberg et al., 2006). Given the rapidly changing nature ofadolescent development, a central challenge for prevention science is to conceptualizewhat types of interventions may be successful in reducing the risk for seriousadolescent problems.Steinberg (2004; Steinberg et al., 2006) aptly characterizes the dilemma of earlyand middle adolescence as one in which the individuating youth is pubertally drivento engage in new levels of emotional stimulation and risk taking, while still havinga less-than-fully developed set of executive functions for regulating responsesto affective experiences. In light of this knowledge, Steinberg suggests that it isunlikely that teaching young teens skills will be successful in preventing earlyproblem behaviors such as initiation of substance use, minor delinquency, or teenintercourse. Instead, he promotes the concept of creating environments that limitrisk or reduce harm, such as parental monitoring, curfews, and increased taxes oncigarettes to limit their attractiveness (Liang & Chaloupka, 2002). Other suchenvironmental interventions that have shown effectiveness include new state lawsregulating the nature of driving and driving with peers at certain hours (OregonDepartment of Transportation, 2004). In addition, building effective parent-childcommunication and norms regarding substance use has shown to be an effectivestrategy (Spoth, Redmond, & Chin, 2001).Although we strongly agree that environmental/ecological interventions thathelp to externally regulate adolescent behavior are likely to be protective, we alsobelieve that teaching skills, including those associated with emotional awarenessand executive functions, have a viable role in the adolescent prevention portfolio.We believe that the mediating role of executive functions in childhood, presented