A study involving 90 learning-disabled (LD) children, ages 9-12, and 94 nonhandicapped children found that LD children were less likely to be popular and more likely to be rejected and neglected. Achievement and Intelligence Quotient were not meaningful predictors of peer status in LD children. (Author/JDD)

Evaluates the relative contribution of a number of child characteristics to the prediction of social acceptance. Predictor variables included positive social interactions, occupied behavior when not interacting, mental age, chronological age, and sex. Results supported the efficacy of helping social isolates to interact positively with peers.…

The authors test biosocial models that posit interactions between biological variables (testosterone, estradiol, pubertal status, and pubertal timing) and social context variables (family, peer, school, and neighborhood) in predicting adolescent involvement with cigarettes and alcohol in a sample of 409 adolescents in Grades 6 and 8. Models…

Previous research on friendship selection has failed to focus on how the selection process changes with age or in differently organized environments. This review of the literature takes a life-course perspective on the selection of friends, charting research results on three aspects of the selection process: (1) the number of friends and their…

Recent national surveys have found marked increases in the use of illicit drugs and alcohol among adolescents. To investigate differential prediction of alcohol versus hard drug use amoung youths, 6% of the youths, aged 10-19, from a Pennsylvania county school system (N=1,689) were assessed on the HEW Community Youth Program Impact Scales. The 12…

The early development of self-injurious behavior (SIB) in 16 young children with developmental disabilities was tracked over an 18-month period. Naturalistic observations in each child's classroom found a significant association between early SIB and low levels of social contact, which may be considered as a risk marker for SIB exacerbation.…

This report presents a comprehensive analysis of the reasons why girls and young women smoke, drink and use drugs, and what increases or lowers their risk of substance abuse. It demonstrates that certain key risk factors for substance abuse are unique to girls and young women and pose a greater threat to them than to boys and young men. This…

Peer popularity was compared across three groups of preschool children: (1) children with normally developing language skills; (2) children with speech and/or language impairments; and (3) children learning English as a Second Language. Normally developing children were the most popular. A receptive measure of single word vocabulary was the best…

Data were gathered, using pre and posttests and interviews, on the learning of individual students during a seven-week unit on a science topic (conservation) in a fourth grade classroom. Case studies of the learning experiences of each child, based on recordings and detailed observations of all class activities, were used to predict student…