Discusses a cognitive-social learning model of social skills training to assist young children to greater levels of peer acceptance. Details the model's three components: enhancing skill concepts, promoting skill performance, and fostering skill maintenance and generalization. Emphasizes that trainers must understand the model as well as the…

This approach is primarily concerned with social reasoning and judgment, with how children reason about social phenomena, not just what they reason. The how of social reasoning is called structure, what is reasoned about, content. Presented at the American Psychological Association, Chicago, 1975. (Author)

The Battelle Developmental Inventory (BDI) was administered to 121 young children, and parents rated them with the Social Skills Rating System 2-3 years after entry into the study. Correlations between the two measures revealed very weak to modest relationships, providing limited support for the BDI as a predictive measure of future…

This study compared the adaptive behaviors of 20 autistic, 20 Down's syndrome, and 20 normal children matched on age equivalent adaptive behavior, gender, race, birth order, family size, and socioeconomic status. The autistic children displayed significant and pervasive deficits in the acquisition of adaptive social skills and greater variability…

Synthesizes literature on social comparison in young children. Findings center on (1) children's motivations to engage in social comparison; (2) peer targets; (3) age when social comparison appears; (4) developmental sequences; (5) effects upon subsequent behavior; and (6) sex-related differences. Suggests pratical implications for teaching.…

Recent research about children's early personal-social learning and development is reviewed in relation to three basic psychological questions. The first concerns extent of stability or consistency in stylistic patterns of personal-social behavior across infancy, the preschool years, and the early school years. The second concerns current…

Investigated associations between parents' reported coercion and negotiation with their children, children's self-reported conflict strategies with peers, and their behavioral competence rated by both parents. Results obtained through observation, interviews, and questionnaires included a concurrent correlation between parents' use of coercion and…

During the first months after birth, a child's functions begin to emerge. By age three a child is expected to have mastered the basic tasks of (1) good vegetative functioning (management of drives and impulses involved in eating and elimination), (2) perceptual organization and familiarization with the home environment and skills to orient to a…