Strategies teachers can use to teach parents to teach their children to be prosocial are described. These strategies include teaching incidentally, performing social skills autopsies, coaching emotions, and assigning homework. Issues to be considered when working with parents and children from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds are…

A study investigated the effectiveness of a 9-week collaborative metacognitive social skills intervention program on 16 middle school students attending a private, alternative suburban school for students with learning problems. The program used cooperative learning, role play, and art therapy to improve the students' social problem-solving…

A social interactive training program that focused on eye contact, joint attention, and motor imitation was implemented during regular classroom activities with three preverbal preschool children with autism. Increases in target behaviors and generalization of eye contact and motor imitation behaviors were observed. Social validation measures by…

Compared behavioral, self-evaluative, and attributional responses of boys with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) to those of typically-developing boys on a social success and failure laboratory task. Found that ADHD boys rated their own performance more favorably than controls, were more likely to attribute success to external…

Describes selection criteria based on theory, research, and best educational practice that identify key social and emotional learning (SEL) competencies and program features for promoting students' mental health and reducing risk behaviors. Program features critical to the success of school-based SEL programs emphasize curriculum design,…

Used growth modeling to examine relationship of early parenting to cognitive, language, and social development from 6 to 40 months in full-term and very low birth weight (medically low or high risk) children. Found that behaviors that were sensitive to children's focus of interest and did not highly control or restrict their behaviors predicted…

Oakland, California's Developmental Studies Center has identified "sense of community" in school as a pivotal condition for children's ethical, social, moral, and academic development. Practices such as class meetings, collaborative learning, and buddies will not build community unless designed to meet that goal. Academic learning is…

To assist teachers, descriptions of seven defining characteristics of Asperger Syndrome are provided, including: insistence on sameness, impairment in social interaction, restricted range of interests, poor concentration, poor motor coordination, academic difficulties, and emotional vulnerability. Strategies for addressing each of these symptoms…

This interview with an individual with Asperger Syndrome (AS) discusses the characteristics of autism, how AS differs from autism, and common characteristics of AS. His experiences in school are described and recommendations are made for teachers who work with students with AS and for parents of children with AS. (Contains references.) (CR)

Examines the historical and conceptual foundations of friendship research. Areas addressed include functions of friendship, study of peer relations and peer systems, associated methodological and measurement challenges, and the study of friendship today. The discussion is framed around the "Harry Potter" (by J. K. Rowling) phenomena. (SD)

Examined the nature and correlates of parents' expectations about adolescent sons' behavioral autonomy in a longitudinal study of 81 boys and their families, conducted when the boys were in 6th and 10th grade. Found that fathers' timetables for privileges at preadolescence predicted sons' midadolescent academic and social outcomes four years…

Examined the relationships between certain socialization experiences and social judgments among 54 inner-city, African American kindergartners from low-income families. Results indicated that in evaluating transgressions children distinguished between moral and social-conventional issues when explaining why they were wrong and in terms of rule and…

Examined the association between psychosocial development and the timing of first sexual intercourse in a sample of white, rural adolescents. Two theoretical models were tested. For both boys and girls, early timing of first sexual intercourse was associated with longitudinal patterns of greater transition proneness and poorer psychosocial…

Utilizes questionnaires to examine Carugati and Mugny's assertion that social representations of intelligence are organized both by social identity and unfamiliarity. Discovers a consensus concerning representations of intelligence organized by social identity. Includes a copy of the questionnaire, breakdown of the responses, and other statistical…

Examined the role of the transition to high school as a race/ethnicity consciousness-raising experience that stimulates development of one's racial/ethnic identity depending on newcomers' racial/ethnic congruence with the student body and staff. Findings suggest that changes over the transition to high school served as a race-ethnicity…