Ivymount Social Cognition Instructional Project (IvySCIP) supports teachers and related service providers to implement data-driven social and emotional learning (SEL) instruction for their kindergarten through 5th grade students with social cognition challenges, especially those with high functioning autism spectrum disorders (HF-ASD). Based on…

Educating students with behavioural, emotional and social difficulties requires a thorough systematic approach with the focus on academic instruction. This study addresses the development of a tool, consisting of two questionnaires, for measuring systematic academic instruction. The questionnaires cover the Plan-Do-Check-Act cycle and academic…

This study examined the development of social skills across five measurement points from 4th through 7th grade, and the influence of child gender and school-related factors on the level and growth of social skills, in a large sample of normally developing children in Norway (N = 2,076). On average, children's social skills scores increased…

Several mental health programs have been developed in clinics and transported into schools, which has great potential for increasing access to intervention for students who may not be otherwise served. However, such programs may lack consideration of the complexity and constraints of schools, including the diversity of student needs and…

Objective: Youth who receive services in residential programs have high rates of traumatic exposure and associated symptoms of Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). Little information is available on specific social skills training that could be beneficial for youth in residential programs with PTSD. This study examined changes in behavioral…

The aim of this article is to discuss and problematise issues related to conceptual approaches to differences among children in the world of school education. The article is based on results from a Swedish study on categorisation of schoolchildren's "problems" from a historical perspective. Its central questions are: "What concepts…

The DSM-5 features level of support ratings for social communication (SC) and restrictive and repetitive behaviors (RRB) for individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). We contrasted cognitive, adaptive, and autism severity scores across SC and RRB groups for 158 individuals with ASD diagnosed in a developmental disabilities clinic. Roughly…

In this study, we identified child- and family-level characteristics most strongly associated with clinical identification of language disorder for preschool-aged children. We used machine learning to identify variables that best classified children receiving therapy for language disorder among a sample of 483 3- to 5-year-old children (54%…

Increasingly, pragmatic language skills are viewed as playing a crucial role in the relationship between language and behaviour difficulties. This study aimed to explore whether Social Stories, a familiar intervention for children with autism, would lead to improvements in problematic behaviour for children with both behaviour and pragmatic…

The social communicative deficits and repetitive behaviours seen in Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) may be affected by altered stimulus salience and reward attribution. The present study used eye tracking and a behavioural measure to index effort expenditure, arousal, and attention, during viewing of images depicting social scenes and…

Social skills and sensory processing were examined in 91 homeless or poor housed preschool children. The Social Skills Rating Scale measured children's social skills/behavior problems and the Short Sensory Profile measured sensory and behavioral responses. Children who were poor housed had better social skills, fewer problem behaviors and better…

Short term experimental studies by DiPerna and colleagues have demonstrated the efficacy of the Social Skills Improvement System (SSIS) to measure and improve the social skills and academic functioning of students from Preparatory year to Grade 3 and to decrease problem behaviours. This longitudinal school-led project applied the multi-tiered…

The authors present a three-year case report for an adolescent student with Autism who has academic, behavioral, and mental health needs requiring collaborative school-based intervention. The case report outlines specifically how the student's mental health needs were supported through the application of a relationship-building framework. The…

It is only in recent years that research has begun to focus on gender differences in males and females on the autism spectrum. There is now an increasing awareness that we are missing women and girls on the autism spectrum and the assumption has been that there are more males with autism or Asperger syndrome. The questions needing to be asked are…

This study provides results on a methodological quality review of the single-case research literature from 1998 to 2014 on the use of social skills interventions for students with challenging behavior. A systematic review of the social skills literature was conducted with the intent of updating the Mathur et al. study of social skills…