Describes a residential- and day-treatment center that operates as a "Therapeutic Just Community" designed to support the moral development of girls with serious emotional disturbances. Students are involved in creating community, making rules, and developing self-discipline. Explores the moral meaning of misbehavior and describes discipline and…

Notes the importance of positive human interactions and experiences on child development, and describes seven developmental areas crucial to early brain development. Suggests ways to enhance young children's development of emotional intelligence, social skills, motor skills, vision, language acquisition, vocabulary, and thinking skills. (TJQ)

This study examined the relation between young children's social development and maternal employment among women who entered welfare-to-work programs. Structural equation models provided evidence that indicators of economic security, such as food security and job quality indicators, but not recent employment per se, operated through parenting…

Examined relationship of role models among African American ninth-graders to substance use, delinquency, academic engagement, and psychological well-being. Found that males without male role models and females identifying brothers as role models reported the most problem behavior. Adolescents with paternal role models had most positive school…

This article reviews research on peer-mediated social-skills training strategies used with children with autism, including arranging situations or contingencies to promote optimal peer effort, teaching methods to peers for reinforcing target skills in children with autism, teaching strategies to peers for initiating interactions, and teaching…

Analyzes effects of day care on the development of kindergarten children. Differences in early child care arrangements were more predictive of differences in social development than in intellectual and gross motor performance. (BB)

Reviews studies of maternal employment, processes in child care settings, and the link between children's development and family and child care influences. Critically evaluates the risk for children's social and emotional development that may result from infant child care. (BB)

Three adolescents with developmental disabilities and severe behavior problems received eye-contact skill training using a contingency management approach in a community-based residential treatment center. The intervention produced significant increases in positive eye contact across two social settings. Staff reports of increased social…

Three sources of variability in school achievement of children from demographically homogeneous families were identified: (1) socioeconomic status, (2) family configuration, which are direct and environmentally mediated effects of families' demographic characteristics, and (3) individual differences in the quality of the early environment. (RH)

Used a data analytic strategy that was novel to the M-space literature to examine the mental capacity prerequisites of social-cognitive development of 99 students in grades one, three, and five. Used a structural equations analysis to determine whether M-power was a significant predictor of role-taking development. (RH)

The study with 70 children and adolescents with sickle cell disease did not support the hypothesis that illness severity (measured by frequency of hospitalization) would affect adjustment (measured by IQ, self-esteem, social and personal adjustment, behavioral problems, school performance, and peer relations). (Author/DB)

Educational environments that reduce the likelihood of acting out and promote positive cognitive, social, and emotional development are useful not only to behavior disordered youngsters, but to all students. Forces that facilitate and inhibit the establishment of positive classroom ecologies are outlined, and components of effective instruction…

Claims that children's peer relations are significant in their social, cognitive, and moral development, and are correlated to later problems in social adjustment. Includes a brief historical perspective on the subject, and explores direct and indirect influences. Claims that peer relations develop within ecological frameworks, and identifies the…

Provides a detailed, month-by-month account of a child's accelerated development from birth to age three. The parents and nannies followed a combined socially interactive and cognitively oriented language enrichment program that was developed to have significant, long-term effects on verbal, social, and cognitive competencies from infancy through…

Analysis of social skill self-ratings by 74 adolescents with hearing impairments enrolled in either public or residential schools found that public school students rated their social skills higher than did residential students. Findings are discussed in terms of previous studies, influential variables, and implications for social development and…