The present study examined child and maternal predictors of children's social competence in preschool. One hundred ten mothers and their preschool-aged children participated. Mothers completed parent reports of child temperament and self-regulation, and self-reports of maternal separation anxiety. Mothers' interactional style was coded from…

The MESSIER, a measure of social and communication skills and the Vineland Social Maturity Scale were administered to 618 severe and profoundly mentally retarded adults. The goal of the study was to establish the potential utility of the MESSIER for classifying level of intellectual disability in this group. Comparing MESSIER scores to previously…

The early social and communicative development of very young siblings of children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is the focus of the current study. Three groups of children were included: (1) young children diagnosed with ASD, (2) younger siblings in families with a somewhat older child with ASD, and (3) young typically developing children.…

The National Center for Early Development and Learning recently conducted a comprehensive study of kindergarten programs that is summarized in this article. The study addressed the ethnic, economic, and linguistic characteristics of the children and families served by these programs, their progress in helping children develop school-related…

This paper describes Skills for Academic and Social Success (SASS), a cognitive-behavioral, school-based intervention for adolescents with social anxiety disorder. Clinic-based treatment studies for socially anxious youth are reviewed, and a strong rationale for transporting empirically-based interventions into schools, such as SASS, is provided.…

Predictions about the role of contingency, imitation, and affect sharing in the development of social awareness were tested in infants during natural, imitative, and yoked conditions with their mothers at 5 and 13 weeks of age. Results showed that at both ages, infants of highly attuned mothers gazed, smiled, and vocalized positively more during…

Participants included 165 children with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD; 130 boys, 35 girls) and their 1,298 same-sex classmates (1,026 boys, 272 girls) who served as raters. For each child with ADHD, a child of the same sex was randomly selected from the same classroom to serve as a comparison child, which yielded 165 dyads.…

Today, students typically begin their information experiences in front of a global electronic library of billions of pages of information (the Internet), where materials can be published by just about anyone, on just about anything, and for just about any reason. If students have been taught only to read and understand this information, they could…

The author draws upon recent experience of providing consultancy services to a working group established by the European Commission in 2001 to facilitate the implementation of the Lisbon Strategy for economic, social, and environmental renewal in the European Union. The article begins with a critique of the "new basic skills" identified…

Social skills and emotional intelligence are closely related to each other. The analysis of the relationships between these two variables constitutes the problem of this study, considering the influence of teachers on improving these important features. This study made an evaluation on the relationships between levels of social skills and…

Resilience allows one to achieve emotional health and social competence in spite of a history of adversity. There are three waves of resilience research. The first wave, 40 years ago, examined risk factors in children. The second wave of research asked the question, what do resilient children look like? These studies concluded that while there is…

The alternative education program remains a viable response for engaging students who would otherwise be dropouts. Raywid (1994) synthesized and advanced an alternative school typology describing organizational characteristics with related effectiveness that appeared useful for considering and improving program practices. A Unique opportunity…

Napoleon Dynamite, the quirky hit film from 2004, is a fascinating portrayal of a teenager with social difficulties. The character Napoleon provokes intriguing diagnostic questions in distinguishing between mental illness and the spectrum of normal behavior. He demonstrates several symptoms of Asperger's disorder, yet he also challenges the notion…

Objective: This study examines the role of an introductory course in cognitive therapy and the relative importance of trainees' characteristics in the selection process for an advanced course in cognitive therapy. Method: The authors assessed the files of all trainees who completed one academic year introductory course in cognitive therapy over…

A latent variable modeling approach to reliability and measurement invariance evaluation for multiple-component measuring instruments is outlined. An initial discussion deals with the limitations of coefficient alpha, a frequently used index of composite reliability. A widely and readily applicable structural modeling framework is next described…