Studies on the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on autistic children's psychosocial outcomes have shown mixed results. In the current study we aimed to gain a better insight into the effect of the COVID-19 pandemic by comparing psychosocial outcomes collected pre-pandemic with data collected during the pandemic. We used the Strengths and…

Background: ADHD is highly prevalent in adolescents. ADHD is characterized by heightened impulsive behavior and is often associated with increased risk-taking behavior in adolescence. Previous research has mostly focused on negative aspects of risk-taking behavior. However, recently two other types of risk-taking behavior have been identified:…

School-wide positive behavior support (SWPBS) is a systemic approach for implementing a proactive schoolwide discipline and for improving students' academic and behavioral outcomes by targeting the school's organizational and social culture. With a multilevel approach, the present study evaluates the relative effectiveness of SWPBS on teachers'…

In this longitudinal multiinformant study negative emotionality and sensory processing sensitivity were compared as susceptibility markers among kindergartners. Participating children (N = 264, 52.9% boys) were Dutch kindergartners (M[subscript age] = 4.77, SD = 0.60), followed across three waves, spaced seven months apart. Results show that…

The widely supported wish for more inclusive education places ever greater expectations on teachers' abilities to teach all children, including those with special needs and challenging behaviours. The present study aimed at the question whether teachers judge pupil behaviour more negatively if there are more children with difficult behaviour in…

This study examined dispositional and situational correlates of donating behavior in a sample of 221 eight-year-old children. Children were shown a promotional clip for a charity, including a donation call. For a random half of the children, the video fragment ended with a probe of a same-sex peer donating money to the charity. Seeing a peer…

Inclusive education has brought new challenges for teachers, including the search for a suitable place in the classroom for children with externalizing problems. In the current study, we examined whether a careful rearrangement of the classroom seats could promote social acceptance and more prosocial behaviors for children with externalizing…

Background: The constructs of closeness, conflict, and dependency, which are derived from attachment theory, are widely used to qualify teachers' perceptions of relationships with individual children. Aims: Our main aim was to reveal whether similar and reliable dimensions could be identified in middle childhood with a newly developed student…

The present study examined teachers' domain-specific self-efficacy (TSE) in relation to individual students with a variety of social-emotional behaviors in class. Using a sample of 526 third- to sixth-grade students and 69 teachers, multilevel modeling was conducted to examine students' externalizing, internalizing, and prosocial behaviors as…

Research on school bullying often focuses on the directional path of bullying and/or victimization leading to psychosocial problems, while such one-dimensional views have been shown to be too simplistic. Furthermore, recent research has shown that patterns of bullying at school differ for boys and girls, which makes gender a particularly relevant…

This study examines whether the Communities That Care (CTC) prevention system influences targeted risk and protective factors and the subsequent development of problem behaviour among adolescents (12-18 years) in the Netherlands. In this quasi-experimental study of ten communities (five experimental, five control), adolescent outcomes were…

Objectives: We evaluated a new attachment-oriented intervention aimed at improving parental mind-mindedness, promoting positive parent-child relationships, and reducing child psychopathology in families with adopted children. Method: The sample consisted of 20 families with adopted children (2-5 years of age). After the pretest, the intervention…

Possible differences between childhood-limited antisocial youth and their stable high-antisocial counterparts were examined. Children were 11 years old at wave 1 (T1) and 13.5 at wave 2 (T2). At both waves, the same parent, teacher, and self-reports of antisocial behavior were used. Stable highs and childhood-limited antisocial youth differed…

The present study was designed to examine early adolescents' stereotypical descriptions of two types of youth who are seen as popular by their peers. Participants were 13- to 14-year-old early adolescents (N = 287). The results indicated that early adolescents distinguished two types of popular peers: a "populistic" (popular but not…