Behavior Disordered Children's Social Skills:

Four behaviorally disordered boys from an elementary school special education classroom received social skills training. They were selected on the basis of high negative nominations on the Class Pay sociometric measure. Training was designed to increase the rate at which the boys emitted prosocial behaviors toward their peers. Verbal instructions, modeling, role-play, and feedback were used to coach positive social behaviors in eight individual sessions with each boy. In a multiple baseline design across subjects, each of the target children showed an increase in positive behavior concurrent with training. A decrease in the occurrence of positive behavior followed termination of training, however, resulting in a final level of positive behavior intermediate between baseline and training levels. The expected increases in positive responses by peers did not occur, and the measure of sociometric status was not consistently sensitive to the observed behavioral change. Unique problems of social skills training in the special education classroom are discussed.     

Children's Classification Skills as Predictors of Their Referential Communicative Encodings

Younger and older children's classification skills were assessed, and their classificatory performance was used as a predictor variable in a multiple-linear-regression analysis to determine whether their classificatory skills accounted for a significant proportion of the variance in their performance on referential communication tasks. We tested 10 boys and 10 girls at each of six age levels between 5 and 10 years individually on a vocabulary test, four classification tasks, and six referential communication tasks. Order of task presentations was counterbalanced; reliabilities for all tasks were high. A series of related multiple-regression analyses showed that grade and vocabulary accounted for a significant proportion of the variance on the referential communication tasks; the series also showed a large decrease in the F value for grade and vocabulary when the contribution of the classification variables was partialled out. No evidence for an independent contribution of the classification variables was found.     

Validation of the Peer Social Maturity Scale for Assessing Children's Social Skills

We evaluated the utility of a brief, seven‐item, teacher‐rated Peer Social Maturity Scale (PSMAT). In Study 1, teachers of 138 Australian children (ranging from 5 to 8 years and 5 months old) in kindergarten and Grades 1 and 2 rated their pupils' social maturity using the PSMAT and their classroom social skills via the Social Skills Rating System (SSRS). The PSMAT showed excellent internal consistency and a significant overall correlation with the SSRS social skills scale. Study 2 involved a new longitudinal sample of children who were rated by different classroom teachers in kindergarten and Grades 1 and 2 of full‐time primary school. Consistent with Study 1, at all three time points, PSMAT scores were highly correlated with SSRS social skills scores. PSMAT scores also correlated significantly with peer‐rated social preference. These studies confirm that the PSMAT is a reliable and valid assessment of children's social maturity within their classroom peer groups. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Social Validity Assessment of Mindfulness Education and Practices Among High School Students

The authors describe social validity assessment of mindfulness education and practices among high school students (N = 84) participating in a 10-week instructional program. The participants rated their satisfaction with and acceptance of several program components, content areas, and outcomes, as well as their engagement in specific mindfulness practices. Nearly all of the participants rated the program favorably, reported many beneficial effects, and anticipated future use of mindfulness in their lives. They did not routinely perform voluntary formal guided meditations beyond the classroom but did engage in informal mindfulness practices preceding certain activities (e.g., preparing for a test, athletic competition, performance event) and going to sleep at night. The authors discuss these findings and the implications for designing school-based mindfulness education programs.     

Psychometric Properties of a Social Skills Assessment using a Virtual Environment

Social Anxiety Disorder (SAD) is a marked and persistent fear of social and/or performance situations in which embarrassment or scrutiny from others may occur. One form of behavioral assessment is a Role Play Task (RPT). However, RPTs often are not feasible in clinical settings due to the common obstacles in implementation. Thus, the current study examines the feasibility, acceptability and psychometric properties of a virtual environment based social skills assessment compared to the traditional RPT. Forty-six children, ages 7 to 14, participated in two assessment conditions: RPT and a virtual environment behavioral assessment (VE BAT). Participants reported self-ratings of anxiety and acceptability, while blinded observers rated social skills and overall social anxiety. An ANCOVA, covarying for age, revealed (a) no significant task difference for voice volume, speech latency, number of words spoken, effectiveness, and SAM ratings; (b) that the VE BAT was more feasible to implement in terms of personnel time and costs and; (c) more overall anxiety during the RPT task than during the VE BAT task. In addition, the VE BAT demonstrated moderate concurrent validity when correlating the self-report ratings of anxiety with the Social Phobia and Anxiety Inventory for Children (SPAI-C). The current study addresses many of the impediments to conducting RPTs in a clinical setting and, overall, supports the utilization of VE BATS as a viable alternative for the behavioral assessment of social skills in children. Further implications address the potential for the armamentarium for social skills training with children with SAD.     

Assessment of Parenting Practices Related to Conduct Problems: Development and Validation of the Management of Children's Behavior Scale

We report on the development and initial validation of the parent-report scale, Management of Children's Behavior Scale (MCBS), designed to evaluate parenting practices related to conduct problems in children. Children (N=396, ages 2-14) referred for outpatient treatment and their parents served as participants. We evaluated the composition and consistency of the scale and provided evidence pertaining to concurrent, predictive, and incremental validity. Evidence for each type of validity was consistent with the conceptualization of the scale and the pertinence to child conduct problems. The measure also was sensitive to therapeutic changes. Parenting practices targeted in treatment (parent management training) improved as predicted over time. The results suggest the measure may be useful in evaluating parenting practices known to relate to conduct problems and often targeted for intervention in parent- and family-based treatment.     

Social Skills,Social Support,and Psychological Distress: A Test of the Social Skills Deficit Vulnerability Model

The social skills deficit vulnerability model predicts that poor social skills minimize opportunities to acquire social support, in turn, leading to the proliferation of psychological distress. This prediction was tested in a 2‐wave longitudinal study that assessed 211 emerging adults at Time 1 (T1), with a 70% response rate 1 year later at Time 2 (T2). The results indicated that, after controlling for psychological distress at T1, social skills at T1 had an indirect effect on lower psychological distress at T2, through higher social support. Thus, people with poor social skills may be vulnerable to the development of psychological distress because they have less access the protective effects of social support.     

Popular and Rejected Children's Social Reasoning: Linking Social Status and Social Knowledge

The relationship between children's social status/sex and their moral judgments was examined. Sixty-four second- and third-grade children (33 boys, 31 girls) who were identified as popular or rejected by peer sociometric measures were shown pictures of children engaged in moral and second-order transgressions. The children were asked to rate each event on (a) the degree of seriousness for other and self, (b) the amount of punishment for other and self, and (c) rule alterability. The children were also asked for justification of the transgressions (why they thought the transgressions were wrong). The popular and rejected children differentiated between moral and second-order transgressions based upon criterion ratings and justifications. Differences emerged between the popular and the rejected children's ratings and justifications for moral transgressions, suggesting that children's moral judgments are related to social experiences associated with peer acceptance and rejection.     

Learning Related and Interpersonal Social Skills Constructs in Two Existing Social Skills Assessments

In the social skills literature it has been identified that both learning related social skills and interpersonal social skills may exist. This study ascertained the views of 16 experts regarding the existence of the two proposed constructs, learning related social skills and interpersonal social skills, within two pre-existing assessments: Preschool and Kindergarten Behavior Scales–2nd edition and Child Behavior Rating Scale. Sixteen experts from Australia (n = 11) and Singapore (n = 5) with pediatric backgrounds in occupational therapy, speech pathology, psychology and early childhood education took part in the study. Experts were asked to sort cards with each of the items from the Child Behavior Rating Scale and Preschool and Kindergarten Behavior Scales–2nd edition (66 items in total) into one of two piles (one for learning related social skills and one for interpersonal social skills) and then answered several open ended questions about the clinical utility of these constructs. Preliminary evidence demonstrated the existence of the learning related social skills and interpersonal social skills constructs within the items of the two assessments (Child Behavior Rating Scale and Preschool and Kindergarten Behavior Scales–2nd edition). The experts' opinion also suggested the potential clinical benefits of assessing both learning related social skills and interpersonal social skills in preschool-age children. The study results and implications for further research and clinical practice are discussed.     

Sibling Conflict Resolution Skills: Assessment and Training

Sibling conflict can rise to the level of a clinical problem. In Phase 1 a lengthy behavioral role-play analog sampling child reactions to normal sibling conflicts was successfully shortened. In Phase 2 normal children who lacked sibling conflict resolution skills were randomly assigned to a Training or Measurement Only condition. Training consisted of five clinic sessions focusing on verbal reasoning, assertiveness, and acceptance skills. Trained children outperformed Measurement Only children on the shortened role-play test. Parents of trained children, but not untrained children, perceived improved social competence in the home. The project provides an empirical foundation for future research with aggressive siblings.     

Children's Responses to Entry Failure: Attention Deployment Patterns and Self-Regulation Skills

In this study the authors investigated associations among children's observed responses to failure in an analogue entry situation, their attention deployment patterns, and skills and processes associated with self-regulation. Participants were 54 kindergarten and first-grade students who were either aggressive-rejected or low aggressive-popular based on peer nominations. Inhibitory control predicted the tendency to respond to entry failure by stopping and watching the group's activity. Baseline vagal tone and other-directed attention predicted children's tendency to change entry strategies after failure. Parent-rated attention skills moderated the relation between children's attention deployment patterns during the entry task and their responses to entry failure. Children who engaged in more other-directed attention were less likely to turn to solitary play after entry failure but only if they had high or moderate levels of attentional control. Other-directed attention was related to repeating previous entry bids without modification after entry failure but only when children had high levels of attention problems.     

Authorship and Publication Practices in the Social Sciences: Historical Reflections on Current Practices

An historical review of authorship definitions and publication practices that are embedded in directions to authors and in the codes of ethics in the fields of psychology, sociology, and education illuminates reasonable agreement and consistency across the fields with regard to (a) originality of the work submitted, (b) data sharing, (c) human participants’ protection, and (d) conflict of interest disclosure. However, the role of the professional association in addressing violations of research or publication practices varies among these fields. Psychology and sociology provide active oversight with sanction authority. In education, the association assumes a more limited role: to develop and communicate standards to evoke voluntary compliance. With respect to authorship credit, each association’s standards focus on criteria for inclusion as an author, other than on the author’s ability to defend and willingness to take responsibility for the entire work. Discussions across a broad range of research disciplines beyond the social sciences would likely be beneficial. Whether improved standards will reduce either misattribution or perceptions of inappropriate attribution of credit within social science disciplines will likely depend on how well authorship issues are addressed in responsible conduct of research education (RCR), in research practice, and in each association’s ongoing efforts to influence normative practice by specifying and clarifying best practices.     

Social Skills Intervention Guide

Social skills training procedures that can be used in a group format are described. These procedures are contained in the Social Skills Intervention Guide (Elliott & Gresham, 1991) which is a systematic approach to teaching social skills to children between the ages of 6 and 16 years. A system for classifying social skills deficits based on acquisition performance deficits and presence(absence of interfering problem behaviors is described. Implementation issues such as selection and grouping of students, establishing group rules, and monitoring progress are also described as well as a means of monitoring student progress in social skills training groups.     

意识障碍:概念、分类与评定

意识障碍是严重脑损伤后面临的重要问题,目前对其基本概念的认识尚存不足.通过对国外研究的最新进展的分析,并结合自身临床实践,回顾了意识障碍各种概念的起源及分类,归纳了用于意识障碍评定的诸多量表,并根据其特点提出临床应用建议.     

Grounding Rights in Social Practices: A Defence

This paper defends a social practiceconception of moral rights possession againstwhat many of its critics take to be a decisiveobjection, namely that such a conceptionprevents us from using moral rights forcritical purposes.     

Social Antecedents of Children's Trustworthiness

A total of 1329 children were tested twice across 1 year (M = 7 years 5 months of age at Time 1 (T1)) in the Zurich Project on Social Development. The measures at T1 were corporal punishment, neighbourhood trustworthiness and children's trustworthiness (not lying/cheating and not stealing). At Time 2 (T2), children reported the promise keeping of their classmates, which, via social relations analyses, yielded evidence for individual differences in reliability trustworthiness. Structural equation modelling analyses confirmed that there was stability in children's trustworthiness as a latent variable. The structural equation modelling further yielded evidence that (1) corporal punishment at T1 was negatively associated with children's trustworthiness at T1 and negatively predicted changes in children's trustworthiness and (2) neighbourhood trustworthiness at T1 was positively associated with children's trustworthiness at T1 and positively predicted changes in children's trustworthiness. The findings yielded support for the hypotheses that corporal punishment negatively, and neighbourhood trustworthiness positively, contributes to the development of trustworthiness in children. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.