Taxonomy of Problematic Social Situations for Children

Enhancing Classroom Teaching for Students with Speech and Language Exceptionalities: A Social-Emotional Program

“…The aim was to highlight the childrens' social and emotional levels prior to the intervention to better assess the effectiveness of the program upon completion. Measures of social competency from the Preschool Taxonomy of Problem Situations [11] and the Taxonomy of Problematic Social Situations for Children [10] were in the mid range and considered to be reflective of poorer social development at both pretest and posttest.…”

“…To monitor students' social and emotional development throughout the course of the program, four classroom teachers completed the Taxonomy of Problem Situations for Children (kindergarten and first grade students only) [10] or the Preschool Taxonomy of Problem Situations (pre-kindergarten students only) [11] to measure social competencies and the Emotion Regulation Checklist (all grade levels) [12] to assess emotional competencies. The classroom teachers were chosen because they knew the students well and the scores accurately reflected students' development.…”

“…Contrary to previous interventions, no pull-outs with individual children occurred [18], [7], [17]. The three selected measures, Taxonomy of Problematic Social Situations for Children [10], Preschool Taxonomy of Problem Situations [11], and the Emotion Regulation Checklist [12] were completed by teachers. The first two social measures were chosen because specific social contexts are emphasized instead of a more general assessment of social development [11].…”

“…The items were created by a group of 50 teachers and 6 clinical psychologists, and organized into six potentially challenging social situations. The focus is on specific scenarios to determine the likelihood of a child's response to particular triggers [10]. The situations are: 1) Peer group entry (when the child has to include himself into a group, 5 items); 2) Response to peer provocation (child maintains integrity when being instigated by other students, 10 items); 3) Response to success (child performs more competently than other students, 3 items); 4) Response to failure (child performs less competently than other students, 9 items); 5) Teacher expectations (concise classroom rules established to teach children social norms, 6 items); and, 6) Social expectations (concise rules established within society to teach children social norms, 11 items) [10].…”

“…Test-retest reliability varied between 0.31 and 0.73 for item scores, 0.57 to 0.72 for each challenging social situation and 0.79 for the final cumulative score [10]. Mean scores can be calculated for each of the six social situations to compare to the total mean for the entire measure, which serves to highlight the social situations that are especially difficult for the children [10]. High scores are indicators for concern [11].…”