Children's relationships with adults (e.g. parents and teachers) and within-family relationships (e.g. parent-parent) are important drivers for the development of children's social competence. The current study examined the contributions of adult-child relationships (parent-child and teacher-child) and parent-parent relationships to preschool…

The current randomized control trial evaluated the effectiveness of a new social-emotional learning (SEL) program, I Can Succeed for Preschools (ICS-PS). ICS-PS aims to improve preschoolers' social/interpersonal, emotional, and academic skills in an integrative way, focusing on children's core executive functions (EFs). The various components of…

Low-income children often enter kindergarten behind higher-income peers in math; gaps also exist in social-emotional aspects of school readiness, fueling interest in cross-domain relations and whether -- and which -- social skills matter for promoting early math skills. With a sample (N = 76) of mostly low-income, minority preschool children, we…

In a moment when the "value" of postsecondary education has been repeatedly called into question, this study responds by identifying long-term effects of the undergraduate experience with particular attention to the general education curriculum. Specifically, it draws on 559 written responses from a wide range of alumni to identify which…

Friendship is a developmentally significant relationship in childhood and adolescence that contributes to socioemotional, social-cognitive, and psychological development and well-being. It is a dyadic relationship based on mutual affection, with both friends thinking of each other as friends. Despite this definitional understanding of the dyadic…

The Inclusive Reading Club for Young Children presented the study of organizing the reading club activities as an inclusive setting that promote the literacy skills and language development (such as hold books, re-tell story, comprehensive reading skills, response to wh-questions, writing their name) of young Dual language learners, child with…

As the rates of Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) increase and early screening efforts intensify, more toddlers with high likelihood of ASD are entering the United States' (US') publicly funded early intervention system. Early intervention service delivery for toddlers with ASD varies greatly based on state resources and regulations. Research…

Globalization and the internationalization of higher education bring together complex issues that have led to uncertainty in navigating the internationalization of business curricula in an effort to educate global business leaders. The relationship between internationalized business curricula and its link to the development of global competence…

The purpose of this qualitative phenomenological study was to understand how domestic graduate minority students experience faculty interaction based on social and emotional cues. The theories of social constructivism and social cognitive theory were the basic frameworks for this study. Three research questions guided the study: (1) How do…

The specific problem is the reading proficiency scores of elementary students in the US did not significantly improve between 2015 and 2020. The purpose of the study was to determine whether the use of social awareness integrated interdisciplinary instructional methods would increase the reading achievement scores of fifth-grade students, based on…

Teachers play an important role in student learning. When teachers are assigned to teach outside their expertise, it can prove challenging for them. This dissertation is a step towards understanding how different out-of-field conditions impact science teachers. The first study of the dissertation aims at understanding the development of enacted…

The purpose of this qualitative study was to compare perceptions of preparedness to teach students with emotional disabilities (ED) between teachers with a mild intervention license and teachers with an ED license. The study examined the perceptions of five teachers with a mild intervention license and five teachers with an ED license as derived…

The present study explored the role of three components of executive function (EF)--response inhibition, working memory, and cognitive flexibility--in preschool children's social competence. Each component was expected to contribute uniquely to children's abilities to resolve peer conflict in a competent manner, namely, the inhibition of…

Adults with intellectual disabilities (ID) struggle to gain access to sexual knowledge and experiences. Sexual knowledge increases opportunities for intimacy and positive sexual identities as well as decreases the risk of victimization. This review evaluated the extant literature on sexual education programs for adults with ID. Six studies met…

Social abilities relate to performance on visual-spatial perspective-taking (VSPT) tasks for hearing nonsigners but may relate differently to VSPT abilities for deaf signers because of their distinct linguistic and social experiences. This research investigated whether deaf adults approach VSPT tasks nonsocially (as previously suggested for deaf…