A reliable measure of children's skills in discriminating intention cues was developed to test the hypothesis that such skills are related to social competence. The instrument was administered to 176 kindergarten, second-grade, and fourth-grade children who were identified as being popular, average, socially rejected, or socially neglected.…

This study examined whether mainstreamed students with mild intellectual disabilities (MID) were socially accepted by general education peers. The setting was a rural area in central Georgia. The participants were 61 mainstreamed students with MID and their 286 general education peers. Preservice special education teachers were trained to use…

Rating and nomination sociometric assessments were used to investigate patterns of friendship among 1,168 students in 66 ungraded primary classrooms. Analyses revealed that both peer acceptance level and age relative to classmates influenced whether children had friends, the total number of reciprocated friendships, and the numbers of friendships…

Part of growing up involves discovering social power, the power of the group, and the power of words. Victims of chronic harassment are at serious risk for poor mental and physical health, as well as academic underachievement. A good way to start simultaneously protecting at-risk victims while explaining to parents of non-victims that what appears…

This study examined the role of low social preference in relation to subsequent depressive symptoms, with particular attention to prior depressive symptoms, prior and concurrent aggression, mutual friendships, and peer victimization. Italian children (N = 288) were followed from grade 6 through grade 8, and American children (N = 585) were…

This study examined ethnic and sex differences in children's depressive symptoms, along with hypothesized mediators of those differences (academic achievement, peer acceptance), in a follow-up of African American (n = 179) and Euro-American (n= 462) children in Grades 3 to 5. African American boys reported more depressive symptoms than African…

This booklet is intended to help children learn to understand and accept a classmate or schoolmate who is autistic. It describes the autistic child's characteristics and life from the child's point of view, including positive aspects such as learning to read and learning to do arithmetic, and negative aspects such as not talking well and not…

Although it is inevitable that siblings who live in the same family and enter the same school can hardly avoid being measured with each other by peers, teachers, and parents, data on school-aged siblings is rare. To extend the knowledge of sibling relationships, the relationships of classroom acceptance, visibility, and academic achievement…

The concurrent and predictive validity of four qualitative behavioral classes of social interaction (initiating and receiving positive and negative social interaction) was investigated using sociometric measures of peer acceptance (ratings) and friendship (nominations). Forty children (18 boys and 22 girls) selected from 14 third- and fourth-grade…

This study was designed to test the hypothesis that maturity of moral judgment is related to moral behavior and to certain personality characteristics. (GO)

Thirty-two boys rejected by their peers in grades one through three, identified on the basis of negative sociometric nominations and negative social behavior, were randomly assigned to one of four treatment conditions (a) instructions to promote positive social behavior, (b) prohibitions to reduce negative social behavior, (c) a combination of…

Examines children's cognitive phases by describing the role that distinctiveness and consistency information play in the causal attributions and behavior of peer-rejected and aggressive children. Correlates the existence of social information and lack of social information to the response style. (RJC)

This study investigated the relationship of academic achievement of categories of social status (popular, rejected, isolated, and amiable), peer acceptance and social impacts among 145 elementary school children. Academically able students were more often considered amiable or popular, while the below average achievers were more often rejected.