Research Findings: The current study explored the impact of a brief, small-group, shared book-reading (SBR) intervention on preschoolers' expression of thoughts and emotions and their social understanding. To structure discourse around the book, we adapted Ellis's ABC model, which focuses on understanding activating events (A), related beliefs…

The current randomized control trial evaluated the effectiveness of a new social-emotional learning (SEL) program, I Can Succeed for Preschools (ICS-PS). ICS-PS aims to improve preschoolers' social/interpersonal, emotional, and academic skills in an integrative way, focusing on children's core executive functions (EFs). The various components of…

Research Findings: This study examined the potential impacts of ongoing participation (twice weekly for 30 weeks) in teacher-child managed whole-group language and literacy instruction on prekindergarten children's social interaction with classmates. Teacher-child managed whole-group instruction that provides children with opportunities to engage…

Research Findings: Emotion knowledge is a core developmental process that has a documented relation to other aspects of social-emotional functioning, including social competence, emotion regulation, and behavior problems. Children who are maltreated have been found to have compromised emotion knowledge skills as well as higher levels of behavior…

Research Findings: Emotion regulation is a strong predictor of both short- and long-term peer relationships and social competence and is often targeted in preschool curricula and interventions. Pretense is a natural activity of childhood that is thought to facilitate the development of socialization, perspective taking, language, and possibly…

Research Findings: The goal of this study was to determine the efficacy of an educational intervention program to improve emotion knowledge, emotion regulation, and social competence in 2-year-old Spanish children. This study makes two original contributions because there are no validated education programs for such young children and because it…

Research Findings: Preschool behavior problems are of increasing concern to early childhood educators. Preventive interventions are being developed, but implementation in underresourced child care programs is challenging. This study describes the implementation of an adapted Second Step curriculum to increase children's social skills and decrease…

Research Findings: Children's (n = 980) social competence during prekindergarten was assessed as a function of their teachers' (n = 233) exposure to the Preschool Promoting Alternative Thinking Strategies (PATHS) curriculum and 2 levels of support through MyTeachingPartner, a Web-based approach to professional development. Children in classrooms…

Research Findings: The study examined children's recognition of emotion from faces and body poses, as well as gender differences in these recognition abilities. Preschool-aged children ("N" = 55) and their parents and teachers participated in the study. Preschool-aged children completed a web-based measure of emotion recognition skills…

Research Findings: The current study's main aim was to implement a multifocused, community-based intervention for preventing conduct problems in preschool children. Our assumption was that the same intervention program could be delivered concomitantly as a universal prevention program for all children as well as an indicated prevention program for…

Research Findings: This study examined the extent to which maternal sensitivity in infancy and toddlerhood is associated with children's social and relational competence and problems in the early years of schooling as well as the extent to which this association is mediated by children's effortful control abilities. Data from 1,364 children (705…

Research Findings: The study evaluated the "safe kindergarten" program designed to promote kindergartners' communication and social skills based on principles of Imago marital and family counseling (H. Hendrix, 1990). Participants were 92 kindergartners from 4 kindergartens (intervention = 46; comparison = 46). Teachers in intervention…

Home observations recorded how 33-month-old younger siblings act as third-party interveners in family disputes. Disputes usually involved house rules when mother was absent. Children who supported elder siblings had more harmonious sibling relationships than those who did not support their siblings. Results demonstrate ways in which children are…

Using hypothetical puppet interviews, 48 preschool children were interviewed about their preferences for teacher methods of conflict intervention. Puppet vignettes contrasted conflict issue, peer status, and resolution strategy (negotiation, power assertion, and disengagement). Results showed that preschoolers preferred negotiation strategies over…

We examined the effectiveness of the PATHS curriculum in a magnet elementary school serving a distressed urban area. Aspects of social-emotional competence were examined for second graders who had, and had not, received the PATHS intervention. The intervention groups differed, with the control group having lower social-emotional competence than…