Despite efforts mandated by national legislation, the state of Georgia has made little progress in improving Grade 5 students' standardized test scores in science, spurring the need for social change. The purpose of this quantitative causal-comparative study was to determine whether there was a significant difference in the student achievement in…

The purpose of this study was to explore the concept of play through the eyes of talented and gifted (TAG) fifth- and sixth-grade students. Three focus groups consisting of fifth- and sixth-grade TAG students were conducted in one urban, one suburban, and one rural school district in the Midwest. Students were asked to describe the value of play…

Social capital refers to the attributes and qualities of family, social and community networks that facilitate cooperation between individuals and communities. The quality of these networks and the extent to which individuals are engaged with them are believed to have an impact on the educational and social development of children and young…

Each culture's values shape its education practices. A comparison of U.S. and Portuguese practices in including children with disabilities in regular classrooms illuminates much about both our systems. The Portuguese value interdependence, and their education system promotes shared responsibility by students in a class to help the education of a…

This study, framed by social constructionism, investigated the dialogic exchanges and co-construction of knowledge among female graduate students, who met to discuss the ways in which the differences between mentors and mentees might be negotiated in order to develop and maintain mentoring relationships that benefit both partners. Ten female…

Background: The role of parenting in child social anxiety was examined in an information processing experiment. We tested the relative weight that children in general, and high versus low socially anxious children in particular, put on fathers' versus mothers' signal about whether a social situation is safe or a threat. Method: Children aged 8-12…

Considerable strides have been made in the past decade in recognizing the centrality of the cultural context of schooling to adolescent development. In this review, adopting a developmental systems conceptualization of schooling, we focus on selected new research findings from the past decade regarding how (a) teachers, curricular tasks, and…

The purpose of the study was to examine the differential relations between mother-child reminiscing about a positive emotional event vs. a negative emotional event and attachment security, family climate, and young children's socioemotional development. Fifty preschool children (M age = 50.69 months, SD = 4.64) and their mothers completed two…

It is widely reported that music can be beneficial to individuals with autism. This review was undertaken to determine the evidence base for the use of music as an intervention for children with autism. After searching relevant databases, 128 articles were identified of which 20 articles met the study's inclusion criteria. Composed songs and…

The aim of this study was to investigate the unique and combined role of friendship quality and friends' aggression in regard to the persistence of young children's physical aggression from kindergarten to grade 2. The sample included 1555 children (808 girls) assessed annually using teacher ratings. Two theoretical perspectives (i.e., the social…

We investigated whether deficits in social gaze and affect and in joint attention behaviors are evident within the first year of life among siblings of children with autism who go on to be diagnosed with autism or ASD (ASD) and siblings who are non-diagnosed (NoASD-sib) compared to low-risk controls. The ASD group did not differ from the other two…

The DSM-V-committee has recently published proposed diagnostic criteria for autism spectrum disorders. We examine these criteria in some detail. We believe that the DSM-committee has overlooked a number of important issues, including social imagination, diagnosis in infancy and adulthood, and the possibility that girls and women with autism may…

The extent to which the socioemotional impairments of Asperger syndrome (AS) might be extreme manifestations of individual differences within the general population remains under-explored. We compared the trait emotional intelligence (trait EI) profiles of 30 individuals with AS against the profiles of 43 group-matched controls using the Trait…

Autism spectrum disorders (ASD) represent a continuum of cognitive and social problems that vary considerably in both impact and presentation for each child affected. Although successful interventions have been developed that target specific skill deficits often exhibited by children with autism, many of those interventions are exclusively…

As the number of children engaging in problem behaviors grows, teachers increasingly report feeling unprepared to effectively meet students' mental health needs. Social-emotional learning (SEL) should be a prominent goal of school programs because social competence prevents school failure. This commentary reviews the challenges associated with…