Affection activities (such as hugging, smiling, and saying positive things) can be added to typical preschool games and songs to encourage interaction between handicapped children and nonhandicapped peers. The intervention can be adapted for use with children with diverse handicapping conditions. Typical activities, modified directions for…

Lists a total of 32 references and resources on techniques for conflict resolution in the preschool classroom, most dated in the 1980s and 1990s. (LB)

This study of 14 children (ages 3-5) with disabilities participating in the Classwide Social Skills Program found that the program increased subjects' positive play and levels of teacher reinforcement, but these increases did not generalize to 3-month or 6-month follow-up periods nor to another play session in the day. (Author/JDD)

This article points out that the acculturation of students from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds is achieved primarily through language socialization. It examines the types of variation that must be addressed in working with students from diverse backgrounds, such as language code differences, conversational discontinuities, and…

Cooperative learning can help children understand and accept children of other races. In cooperative learning, students work in small teams with students of differing abilities and help each other master material. The highly structured format involves five elements: positive interdependence, face-to-face interaction, individual and team…

A social behavior training package was implemented with 9 children (ages 12-13) with deafness and language disabilities. The package included child training as well as supervision, feedback, and goal-setting by teachers and residential staff members. Target behaviors increased and were generalized across settings, activities, and subjects during…

Evaluation of an "Understanding Learning Disabilities" (ULD) course at Lesley College (Massachusetts) concluded that the ULD course was effective in expanding learning-disabled students' knowledge base regarding their disability and in teaching them to apply their self-understanding in a social context. Moreover, students' performance on…

A study compared the interviewing skills of 15 advanced-standing (bachelor's degree-holding) and 23 master's degree students of social work, with blind raters evaluating student use of 3 core skills: facilitation; questioning/clarification; support/empathy. No statistically significant differences were found between the groups, supporting the…

Investigated maternal/preschool child functioning in families of solo mothers. Solo mothers differed from married counterparts in stress and social support, yet no differences in child outcome were observed. Reassessed 28 families as children entered preadolescence. Teachers reported preadolescents of solo mothers had more behavior problems, lower…

Factors that allowed inner-city ninth graders to maintain socially competent behavior in spite of stress were examined. Findings yield insights on the ways in which personality variables may interact with stress to influence social competence among inner-city adolescents. (GLR)

Studied the role of social conditions, Type A behavior, monitoring, blunting, and locus of control in second and fifth graders' methods of coping with everyday stressors. Except for Type A behavior, coping was associated with the predictors. Strongest associations were found for social competence. Predictors were not associated with ratings of…

Studied rejected children by assessing aspects of their self-concepts and their perceptions of relationships with significant others. Assessed possible biases in the processing of information about the self across status groups. Explored potential differences among subgroups of children who had been classified as sociometrically rejected. (RH)

General issues raised by Gersten in his commentary on DeVries' article are discussed. These include the role of error, academic content, and direct instruction in constructivist education. His criticisms of sociomoral research by DeVries and others are emphatically refuted. (LB)

An exemplar-based model of social judgment is presented in which specific past experiences and more abstract schematic knowledge influence judgments and perceptions of people and groups. Computer simulations illustrate the way the model accounts for social influences on exemplar access and use and on the content of social judgments. (SLD)

When two nonhandicapped peers of an autistic five-year old were trained to initiate social interaction, social interaction increased and then dramatically decreased in a reversal phase, and no decrease in the autistic child's disruptive behaviors was observed. When the autistic child was trained to initiate interaction, social interaction…