The current study investigated the effects of Social Stories written according to Gray's specifications on on-task behavior in inclusive classroom settings in three children with autism. Using a multiple-baseline design across participants, modest improvements in on-task behavior were associated with implementation of an auditory-visual Social…

Over the past five decades, the federal government and most states have invested heavily in providing publicly-funded child care and early education opportunities for 3- and 4-year-old children from low-income families. Policy makers and parents want to identify "the level" or "threshold" in quality of teacher-child interaction…

The prospective relations of temperamental effortful control and anger/frustration to Chinese children's (N = 425, age range = 6.6-9.1 years) academic achievement (grade point average, or GPA) and social adjustment (externalizing problems and social competence) were examined in a 2-wave (3.8 years apart) longitudinal study. Parents and teachers…

Positive peer reporting (PPR) is a peer-mediated intervention that involves teaching and rewarding peers for providing descriptive praise during structured daily sessions. PPR has been used in residential facilities to improve social acceptance, increase prosocial behaviors, and decrease negative interactions of youth identified as peer rejected.…

The Center on the Social and Emotional Foundations for Early Learning (CSEFEL) is a federally funded national resource center designed to support early care and education providers address the social-emotional needs of children birth through age 5 years. Recent research has found that an extraordinarily high number of young children are being…

Two hundred seven students in Grades 1 through 5 who were at risk for severe behavior problems participated in a 2-year study of the effects of the "Check, Connect, and Expect" (CCE) program. The CCE program combined the essential intervention procedures of the "Check & Connect Program" and the "Behavior Education…

Few studies have examined whether familiarity of partner affects social responses in children with autism. This study investigated heart rate regulation (respiratory sinus arrhythmia [RSA]: The myelinated vagus nerve's regulation of heart rate) and temporal-parietal electroencephalogram (EEG) activity while nineteen 8- to 12-year-old children with…

Background: Individuals with autism have impairments in 3 domains: communication, social interaction and repetitive behaviours. Our previous work suggested early structural and connectivity abnormalities in prefrontal-striato-temporal-cerebellar networks but it is not clear how these are linked to diagnostic indices. Method: Children with autism…

We used experimental and descriptive functional analyses and lag sequential analyses to examine the functional and temporal relationship among the self-injurious (SIB), potentially injurious, repetitive, challenging, and pragmatic communicative behaviors of 6 children with intellectual disabilities. Functional analyses revealed social function for…

We examined sibling relationships for children and adolescents with intellectual disability and assessed implications for their social functioning. Targets (total N = 212) had either intellectual disability, a chronic illness/physical disability, or no disability. Nontarget siblings reported on relationship quality, sibling interactions were…

This study examined the differences between preschool English learners and preschool English speakers in the areas of classroom conduct, social skills, and teacher-child relationship quality, as rated by their teachers. Data were taken from the Early Head Start Research and Evaluation Project. Students who were English learners were rated…

This RCT examined the efficacy of a manualized social intervention for children with HFASDs. Participants were randomly assigned to treatment or wait-list conditions. Treatment included instruction and therapeutic activities targeting social skills, face-emotion recognition, interest expansion, and interpretation of non-literal language. A…

Many preschool, Head Start, and kindergarten educators of young children express concern about the number of children who exhibit frequent challenging behaviors and report that managing these behaviors is difficult within these classrooms. This article describes research-based strategies with practical applications that can be used as part of…

In this article, James Williams, a young man with Asperger's syndrome (AS) shares his experiences taking physical education in a generalized education setting and discusses the implications for students with AS. He was diagnosed with AS when he was 9 years old. School was tough at times, especially when social interactions came into play. One of…

Social validation is the value judgment from society on the importance of a study. The social validity of behavior goals used in the social competence intervention literature was assessed using the Q-sort technique. The stimulus items were 80 different social competence behavior goals taken from 78 classroom-based social competence intervention…