The author shares a story about the positive power of nature in the lives of children, particularly those children who are at-risk for school failure. The setting for the story is the Central Child Development Center (CCDC) in Rock Hill, South Carolina, a public preschool with four-year-old kindergarten students (4K) and preschoolers with special…

The study of phenotypic variability in social impairments and comorbid emotional disorders in autism is important because it provides information on phenotypic differences that currently complicate diagnosis, research, and treatment of this disorder. Currently, though, relatively little is known about the processes that contribute to individual…

Fetal alcohol syndrome (FAS) is currently recognized as the most common known cause of mental retardation, affecting from 1 to 7 per 1000 live-born infants. Individuals with FAS suffer from changes in brain structure, cognitive impairments, and behavior problems. Researchers investigating neuropsychological functioning have identified deficits in…

This prospective, longitudinal study examines individual differences in two conceptually related but empirically distinct domains of social-cognitive competence (cognitive interpretive understanding and interpersonal perspective co-ordination) as moderators of the relation between peer rejection and neglect and behavioral and emotional problems in…

Schools in the UK and beyond continue to experience the damaging effects of "top down," "one size fits all" "outcome-based" educational reforms. Educators struggle to meet the dual demands of a punishing performativity- and accountability-driven regime alongside the personal, social, emotional and learning needs of…

We observed the positive emotion socialization practice of parental emotion coaching (EC) and the negative socialization practice of emotion dismissing (ED) during a family interaction task and examined their effects on children's emotion regulation and behavior problems in middle childhood. Participants were 87 sociodemographically diverse…

The study, in which mothers of 62 children with spina bifida completed the Child Behavior Checklist, found that children with differing degrees of physical problems and disability (determined from medical charts) did not differ significantly in their psychosocial adjustment. (Author/DB)

Article reviews strategies used by the most highly effective classroom teachers to achieve long-term goals of self-discipline while simultaneously achieving short-term goals of classroom management and control of discipline problems. Profiles three national projects that employ comprehensive, broad-based, preventive approaches to improving…

The present study included observational and self-report measures to examine associations among parental stress, parental behaviour, child behaviour, and children's theory of mind and emotion understanding. Eighty-three parents and their 3- to 5-year-old children participated. Parents completed measures of parental stress, parenting (laxness,…

The objectives of the study were to examine the characteristics of non-referred children with behaviour difficulties (BD) (such as verbal and physical aggression towards children and objects), aged 9-12 years and attending mainstream schools, and to compare them with children with no BD. The second objective was to evaluate the contribution of a…

The school is an obvious arena for interventions designed to promote mental health among children. A set of educational techniques named social and emotional learning, which focuses on students' self-control, social competence, empathy, motivation and self-awareness, has shown promising results in the United States. This is a study of the…

Trilhos Alternativos (Alternative Paths) is a community-based program that aims to integrate African-Portuguese urban youth from low-income families into Portuguese society. This article describes the first year of the program and presents formative data about effectiveness of the program. The motivation system seems to be an indirect variable…

This article examines the benefits and disadvantages of participation in organized youth sports and describes a youth development approach to sports programming. The authors summarize what is known about the physical, socioemotional, and cognitive benefits of sports participation. These include health benefits (for example, a reduction in heart…

Cognitive social skills were assessed in 22 learning disabled (LD), 18 behavior problem, and 20 control boys in grades 7-9. Measures included an interview tapping social knowledge, self-reported behavior, generation of alternative solutions to social problems, and the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children-Revised Vocabulary Scale. Sociometric…

Selected procedures of instruction from Social Skills in the Classroom were applied to class related social behaviors of four elementary and intermediate level behavior disordered students. Improvement occurred in all targeted behaviors. Functional relationships between teaching strategies and changes in the targeted behavior were established in…