A team of educators, parents, and an outreach consultant developed Unified Plans of Support (UPS) for three students whose academic performance was below grade level and whose social participation was limited. Evaluation outcomes suggest consistent implementation of the UPS was associated with increases in academic engagement and social…

Thirty pupils aged 13-15 from East Anglia (England) with special educational needs (moderate learning difficulties) participated in a 5-day residential outdoor education course. Student interviews before and after the course indicate that all students increased in self-esteem; they made more friends, developed greater trust in others, were…

A study compared Euro-American and Taiwanese mothers' descriptions of the social competence benefits of early parent-child interaction and what they do during interactions to achieve these benefits. Visual analysis of probability patterns indicated that mothers in each group thought somewhat differently about their roles in developing different…

Compared self-reported parental values and child-rearing practices and teacher-reported and observed children's social skills among families of young children who were first-generation Chinese Americans, European Americans, or Taiwanese Chinese. All Chinese parents more strongly endorsed traditional Chinese values and exerted more parental control…

This study investigated families of children with autism spectrum disorders using early intervention and early childhood services, as well as the perceived efficacy and developmental outcomes related to the services and service delivery methods. Results indicated that a variety of recommended practices are not being used by families and…

This article stems from the author's personal experience promoting processes in favour of youth and adult education as Secretary General of the Latin American Council for Adult Education. The author draws from the analyses and considerations presented in documents developed over the past seven years that reflect collective thinking and the…

It has been well established that young children with communication disorders (CD) have considerable difficulties interacting socially with peers in free-play settings. The central purpose of this study was to determine whether behavioral adaptations of children with CD could contribute to their peer interaction problems. To accomplish this, the…

Given the research that suggests the social use of language is the latest developing aspect of language, it was hypothesized that children with speech/language impairment (SLI) are particularly susceptible to social interaction difficulties, resulting in diminished social competence. This hypothesis was explored with SLI and non-language-impaired…

Although teachers face increasing pressure to focus on academics in kindergarten, research indicates that promoting school success in young children involves integrating skills in multiple domains. For example, by using dialogic reading--a well-researched shared-reading technique--and books with strong social-emotional content, teachers can…

This study used self-monitoring, coupled with a student/teacher matching strategy, to improve the classroom social skills of five inner-city middle school students, who were at risk for school failure. Using a multiple-probe across students and settings (class periods) design, we evaluated intervention effects in up to six different settings.…

Objective: To examine the persistence of parent-reported social-emotional and behavioral problems in infants and toddlers. Method: The sample comprised 1,082 children ascertained from birth records. Children were 12 to 40 months old in year 1 (1998-1999) and 23 to 48 months old in year 2 (1999-2000). Eighty percent participated in year 1 and 91%…

Background: Sex-differences exist in some areas of human social behaviour. In animals, foetal testosterone (fT) plays a central role in organising the brain and in later social behaviour. fT has also been implicated in language development, eye-contact, and spatial ability in humans. Methods: Fifty-eight children (35 male and 23 female), whose fT…

Environmental restriction or deprivation early in development can induce social, cognitive, affective, and motor abnormalities similar to those associated with autism. Conversely, rearing animals in larger, more complex environments results in enhanced brain structure and function, including increased brain weight, dendritic branching,…

Due to the relatively late age of clinical diagnosis of autism, the early brain pathology of children with autism has remained largely unstudied. The increased use of retrospective measures such as head circumference, along with a surge of MRI studies of toddlers with autism, have opened a whole new area of research and discovery. Recent studies…

Autism is a life-long, complex developmental disorder that causes impairment in the way individuals process information. Autism belongs to heterogeneous categories of developmental disabilities where neurological disorders lead to deficits in a child's ability to communicate, understand language, play, develop social skills, and relate to others.…