Children who fail to acquire appropriate social skills have a lower probability of completing school, becoming employed, and becoming well-adjusted adults. This article provides the practitioner with strategies that can be used for teaching social skills to children with learning and behavior problems. These include how to select students for training, which social skills to use, teaching discrete skills and problem-solving routines, and helping students generalize training across settings and situations.
This article provides a context for this special issue devoted to the social-emotional side of learning disabilities (LD). The impact LD definitions have on policy and practice, the prevalence of social-emotional deficits among youth with LD, relevant social-emotional terms, and the rationale for teaching socialemotional skills are discussed. Finally, the articles comprising this special issue are introduced.
This two-part study was a preliminary investigation of the types of procedures that could be useful in maximizing the participation of families in early intervention programs for their special-needs infants, toddlers, and pre-schoolers. In Study 1, 64 professionals in the early intervention field completed a survey that described 29 potential techniques for maximizing participation of families. For each technique, the respondents endorsed whether they employed the procedure, or would if they could. In addition, they rated the expected effectiveness of each procedure. Verbal praise and encouragement were highly rated and almost universally in use, as were various types of written and resource materials. Tangible reinforcement was seldom employed and professional respondents tended to indicate that they did not expect that such techniques would be useful. In Study 2, 29 mothers of high-risk infants and toddlers currently in early intervention rated the same 29 procedures, but were significantly more likely to endorse the use of tangible reinforcers and logistical support. Comparisons among respondents from professional and parent samples were discussed, along with implications of the findings and necessary directions for future research in this area.
The responsiveness of mothers to their infants has been found to make an important contribution to children's development. Mothers' cognitive ability, emotional state, and life stresses may influence their responsiveness, as may the medical condition of their infants. The patterns of influence may vary between groups of children with different biological risk conditions and should be examined carefully to determine intervention points for different groups.
Forty mothers and their 3‐month‐old (corrected age) infants with intraventricular hemorrhage (IVH) were observed in free play. Mothers' depressive symptoms, cognitive skills, and the degree of infants' IVH were assessed and expected to be influences on mothers' responsiveness. Results indicated that mothers' depressive symptoms and cognitive skills were associated with their responsiveness, but that depressive symptoms were the stronger predictor. Post hoc analyses suggested that socioeconomic status and depressive symptoms may have related effects on mothers' behavior.
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