In a study of links between group acceptance and friendship among children in elementary school, 278 third- through sixth-graders, nearly evenly divided by sex, were assessed with measures of level of peer acceptance, primary and secondary friendship, friendship quality, loneliness, and social dissatisfaction. Findings suggested that the…

Four learning disabled children (6-9 years old) were taught four positive social-emotional behaviors--smiling, sharing, positive physical contacting, and verbal complimenting--using instructions, modelling, and praise. (Author)

The study assessed 237 seriously emotionally disturbed (SED) students and 577 nondisabled students (ages 6-18) on measures of depression, hyperactivity, social status, intelligence, school placement, and aspects of educational achievement. SED students showed greater depression than the nondisabled sample. Patterns of intercorrelations were…

Research findings indicate that children who are unpopular with their peers play in less emotionally mature cognitive and social ways than do children who interact well socially. It is suggested that noncompetitive play in familiar environments may promote a behavior change in unpopular children. (JN)

Examined the relationship between interpersonal intimacy and loneliness, social skills, and social activity. Dispositional level of self-disclosure was found to be inversely related to loneliness. Results suggest that lonely individuals have difficulty appropriately revealing personal information in new relationships and nonstructured social…

Coaching and modeling were equivalent procedures for teaching social skills to isolated children. The abbreviated combination of coaching and modeling did not add to the effects. Peer orientation proved to be only a relatively weak modulator of responsiveness to social skills training. (Author)

Three studies examined children's ability to differentiate aggression and social withdrawal using attributional constructs. Found that even very young children understand the meaning of responsibility and are capable of using it to act as intuitive judges, weighing the evidence to make inferences about responsibility and then meting out judgments…

A study of 25 British students (ages 11-12) found that children with identified special needs did appear to be potentially at risk of being bullied through their social isolation. The most effective way of avoiding being bullied was to ensure there was someone lower down the pecking order than themselves. (CR)

This longitudinal study examined the relation between stable sociometric status among same-gender classmates at age 10-11 and peer situation and social adjustment at age 15. Rejected, popular, and average groups of both genders (N = 90) were selected from a representative school sample. Rejected boys and girls preserved their low position among…

Research on child and family factors in early childhood has shown that both are associated with social and instrumental functioning at school entry. The present study sought to examine the direct and indirect effects of child negative emotionality, maternal education, depression, IQ, and quality of maternal instruction on children's academic and…

This paper describes Skills for Academic and Social Success (SASS), a cognitive-behavioral, school-based intervention for adolescents with social anxiety disorder. Clinic-based treatment studies for socially anxious youth are reviewed, and a strong rationale for transporting empirically-based interventions into schools, such as SASS, is provided.…

Mobility, rather than stability, has become the norm for students in schools across the United States. The student mobility rate is now higher in the United States than in any other industrialized country. This Information Capsule discusses the reasons for student mobility and the characteristics of highly mobile students and families. Research…

Based upon evidence that peer rejection is a marker variable asociated with maladaptive social-emotional development and the risk of later maladjustment, psychologists have focused both on understanding the factors contributing to peer rejection and on preventive interventions designed to remediate social adjustment problems evident in grade…

A program has been developed which teaches behavior principles to junior high school students enrolled in special classes for the emotionally disturbed. (SB)