Parents of children with autism spectrum disorder are known to experience more stress than parents of children with any other conditions. The current study describes the parental stress of 118 fathers and 118 mothers at the onset of their children's Early Intensive Behavioral Intervention program. The objectives of the study were to compare…

The Preschool Behavioral and Emotional Rating Scale (PreBERS) is an assessment of emotional and behavioral strengths in preschoolers with well-established reliability and validity for educational and clinical application in children with and without disabilities. The present study provides further evidence of psychometric rigor for items and…

The present study investigates the plasticity of altruistic behavior in children, analyzing the effect of a short intervention on 6- to 7-year-olds. After a 10-session intervention performed in a school context, altruism significantly increased. The intervention, which included relaxation practices, cooperative activities and emotional security…

Research Findings: Studies of children's prosocial behavior typically focus on prosocial acts with a specific partner (e.g., a friend, peer, or sibling), and comparisons of prosociality in different contexts are rare. To address this gap, the current study examined predictive links among children's spontaneous sharing (a common and important form…

Families who live in poverty face disadvantages that can hinder their children's development in many ways, write Greg Duncan, Katherine Magnuson, and Elizabeth Votruba-Drzal. As they struggle to get by economically, and as they cope with substandard housing, unsafe neighborhoods, and inadequate schools, poor families experience more stress in…

Aim: To determine the effect of parent education on adaptive behaviour, autism symptoms and cognitive/language skills of young children with autistic disorder. Method: A randomised group comparison design involving a parent education and counselling intervention and a parent education and behaviour management intervention to control for parent…

Studies examining the link between parental socialization and child functioning in varying cultural contexts are scarce. Focusing on early adolescents in suburban middle-class families in India, the present study examined interrelations among reports of mothers' socialization goals, socialization behaviors in response to child emotion, child…

This study examines the practical and conceptual dimensions of children's play in German and Hong Kong Chinese kindergartens. German ("n"?=?24) and Chinese ("n"?=?24) children (3-6 years) were randomly selected and videotaped during their free play for 5?min continuously on five consecutive days. Play behavior was analyzed by…

The current study explored the longitudinal relation between parental expressed emotion, a well-established predictor of symptom relapse in various other disorders (e.g., schizophrenia) with externalizing behaviors in 84 children, ages 8-18 (at Time 2), with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). It was found that parental expressed emotion, specifically…

Research Findings: The present study examined the degree to which the association between interactive peer play and academic skills was dependent upon the level of classroom quality for a representative sample of culturally and linguistically diverse urban Head Start children (N = 304 children across 53 classrooms). Peer play interactions within…

The goal of this study was to investigate the relationship between children with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) symptoms and their teachers, and to examine whether this relationship was associated with children's academic motivation. The sample comprised 35 children with clinically elevated levels of ADHD symptoms and 36 children…

Research on school bullying often focuses on the directional path of bullying and/or victimization leading to psychosocial problems, while such one-dimensional views have been shown to be too simplistic. Furthermore, recent research has shown that patterns of bullying at school differ for boys and girls, which makes gender a particularly relevant…

Research Findings: The goal of this study was to examine empirical research on the design, delivery, and measurement of the effects of professional development (PD) for early childhood educators in order to provide insight into what the field has accomplished as well as suggest directions for future PD programs and research. Through the use of…

The impact of a school-based violence prevention program, Second Step, on peer victimization and aggression, and emotion regulation was evaluated among 457 sixth graders. A cluster-randomized trial was conducted with classrooms randomly assigned to intervention (n = 14) or control (n = 14) conditions. A repeated measures analysis of covariance on…

It is still under debate whether the reported effects of opioid maintenance therapy (OMT) on child behaviour are a direct effect of prenatal exposure, or whether other factors are involved. This prospective cohort study investigated three models: the teratogenic risk model, the maternal risk model, and a combined risk model in a group of 35…