Several major goals of early childhood professionals are to help children learn to work with others, care for others, verbalize feelings, support friends, show kindness and exhibit other character skills and traits. When these life skills are lacking, it affects the ways in which children interact with one another and form relationships with peers…

Concurrent and longitudinal relations among parental emotional expressivity, children's sympathy and children's prosocial behavior were assessed with correlations and structural equation modeling when the children were 55-97 months old (N = 214; M age = 73 months, SD = 9.59) and eight years later (N = 130; ages 150-195 months old, M = 171 months,…

Saida, a 16-year-old girl in Bermuda, attended a special alternative high school program for students with serious behavior problems. She had been receiving special education for her behavioral problems since the age of 5. Saida regularly used profanity in response to teacher directives, particularly in social studies class. A functional…

The authors propose a heuristic model of the social outcomes of childhood brain disorder that draws on models and methods from both the emerging field of social cognitive neuroscience and the study of social competence in developmental psychology/psychopathology. The heuristic model characterizes the relationships between social adjustment, peer…

Popular media such as films, television programmes/commercials and magazines have become the dominant source through which children learn about others and their world, develop attitudes and beliefs as manifested in media expressions, and formulate their sense of identity. Popular media have enormous influence on children who are constantly…

The purpose of this study was to document whether adolescents make inferences regarding male and female vignette characters in terms of the characters' sexuality, social skills, impairment, and aggressiveness when the characters consume alcohol. A Web-based survey of 1,691 middle and high school students (grades 6-11) from diverse socioeconomic…

This study explored preschool teachers' beliefs about the appropriateness of early literacy and mathematics education. In all, 60 teachers of 4-year-olds, half working with low-socioeconomic status (SES) children at publicly funded preschools and the other half with middle-SES children at private preschools, were randomly assigned to read either…

Social avoidance is a core phenotypic characteristic of fragile X syndrome (FXS) that has critical cognitive and social consequences. However, no study has examined modulation of multiple social avoidant behaviors in children with FXS. In the current study, we introduce the "Social Approach Scale" (SAS), an observation scale that includes physical…

This case study is a continuation of a research project that investigated 149 mentoring teams in four school districts over a two-year period. The primary goal in the first phase of the study was to identify mentoring teams that were regularly encountering problems, introduce intervention procedures, and assess the effectiveness of those…

Effective social communication interventions achieve 2 outcomes: enhancement of language and social skills and generalization of these skills during authentic interactions with peers. This article describes intervention contexts and strategies for promoting generalization of social communication skills in children with language impairments.…

This paper shares the results of a study on the benefits which an experiential education program has on students in the K-12 range. The study was carried out at a bilingual North American-style college preparatory school located in Colombia, South America. Research was based on experiences obtained through the coordination and implementation of an…

To succeed in college, career and life in the 21st century, students must be supported in mastering both content and skills. This Implementation Guide presents state leaders, policymakers and/or district and school leaders with assessment tactics and examples to assist in statewide 21st century skills initiatives. The Partnership for 21st Century…

This document is one of eight reports prepared to support the development of a new learning system, a development effort that is the first step in a major initiative undertaken by the Stupski Foundation. This document synthesizes recent research and theoretical literature on the special learning needs of urban, underserved students, whom are…

The best childhood predictor of later adult adaptation is the adequacy with which a child gets along with other children. Because social development begins in the early years, it is appropriate that early childhood programs include regular formal and informal assessment of children's acquisition of social competence. This digest presents the…

This article discusses key issues of literacy that are important to both teachers and learners for understanding, and summarizes the function of literacy in three different groups: primary education, adult education, and communities with unwritten languages. The article investigates the scope of literacy, showing how this concept may be defined…