A study developed and validated the Penn Interactive Peer Play Scale (PIPPS), a teacher-rating instrument of the interactive play behaviors of preschool children. Thirty-eight teachers completed the measure on 312 African American children enrolled in Head Start. Exploratory factor analysis revealed three reliable underlying dimensions: play…

The conversational interactions of 25 mothers and their 4.5-year-old children, who had been born preterm, were evaluated during a social problem-solving task. The subject mothers tended to approach the task as a vocabulary lesson, whereas comparison mothers tended to focus on the social negotiation aspect of the task. Possible explanations for…

Ways to promote generalization of social skills of students with learning disabilities (LD) are considered. Approaches include: sequential modification, introducing naturally maintaining contingencies, training sufficient exemplars, training across settings, training loosely, using indiscriminable contingencies, programming common stimuli, and…

Studied the changes in the social exchanges of 30 young children with disabilities with their mothers and a familiar playmate at 4 data points over a 16-month period. Found that the children engaged in more and increasingly social exchanges over time, showed more vocal behavior, and completed more object-related acts. (AC)

Examined the relationships between family members' internal images of their hospitalized adolescents and those adolescents' actual pathological behaviors during the months prior to hospitalization. Assessed images held by parents of the adolescents and the adolescents' self-images along six dimensions of individual and interpersonal functioning.…

Examined effects of emotional communication on preschoolers' emotional competence. Found that the regularities in emotional communication between mothers and their preschool children are associated with variations in the children's emotional competence. In particular, children who witnessed higher level maternal sadness or anger, or responded…

Examined the cognitive and social complexity of the play of disabled children enrolled in integrated early childhood programs and their interaction with teachers. Found that teachers were more likely to support the cognitive aspects of children's play than the social aspects, despite their belief that disabled children lagged behind their…

Forty-six institutionalized adults with mild or moderate mental retardation were administered the Vineland Adaptive Behavior Scales (socialization domain), a subjective measure of quality of life, and a facial emotion recognition test. Facial emotion recognition, quality of life, and social skills appeared to be independent of one another. Facial…

Expanded the curriculum of an assertiveness training program. Found that boys and girls benefited similarly in the cognitive acquisition of assertiveness information from this program. Discusses results in terms of the difference between having stored symbolic information regarding assertive responses and in recognizing appropriate contexts for…

Presents two strategies for cultivating social skills and self-esteem in elementary physical education; recommends the gymnasium's informal atmosphere as ideal for addressing social skills. The first strategy involves selecting a most valuable person each day. The second strategy promotes recognition of positive student qualities and parent…

Studied the effect of short-term exposure to neutral, prosocial, and antisocial toys on the prosocial and antisocial behavior of preschool children. Found that prosocial toys elicited prosocial behavior and antisocial toys stimulated antisocial behavior. In response to both prosocial and antisocial toys, boys displayed more physical than verbal…

Examination of the treatment program for learning-disabled adolescents at McGill-Montreal Childrens Hospital Learning Centre (Quebec) suggests intervention can mitigate effects of even severe learning disabilities if it addresses consequences of prolonged stress and failure and affective and social competence as well as cognitive and academic…

Examines popularity's role in the gender socialization of elementary school children. Explains that children model their behavior based upon idealized male and female images. Concludes that boys attain popularity because of athletic ability, toughness, cross-gender relational skill, while girls obtain popularity because of attractiveness, social…

Six students with developmental delays and low levels of social interaction in preschool settings were followed during kindergarten to assess one-year maintenance effects of a peer-mediated social skills intervention program. Results indicated students continued to interact with peers at higher than baseline levels and were rated as within the…

Assessed preschoolers' peer relations and measured the frequency of parents' and children's initiations of children's play interactions with peers. Frequent parent initiations were associated with high levels of children's prosocial behavior. Children who more often initiated interactions displayed less anxious behavior than children who less…