Children’s Peer Relations: Issues in Assessment and Intervention

Abstract

I Delineating the Realm of Social Competence.- 1 Facets of Social Interaction and the Assessment of Social Competence in Children.- Scheme for Conceptualizing Social Interaction.- Judgments of Social Competence.- Social Behaviors.- The Concept of Social Tasks.- The Role of Unconscious Influences.- Social Information Processing.- Conclusions.- 2 Social Competence and Skill: A Reassessment.- Comprehensive View of Skills Underlying Social Competence.- The Study.- Discussion.- 3 What's the Point? Issues in the Selection of Treatment Objectives.- Friendships and Peer Relationships.- Peer Relationships and Other Personal Relationships.- Conclusion.- II Assessing Social Behavior.- 4 Observational Assessment of Social Problem Solving.- General Framework.- Observational Methods for Assessing Social Problem Solving.- Assessment Criteria.- Some Additional Issues.- Conclusion.- 5 Children's Peer Relations: Assessing Self-Perceptions.- Assessing Children's Self-Perceptions.- Individual Differences.- 6 Assessment of Children's Attributions for Social Experiences: Implications for Social Skills Training.- Children's Spontaneous Attributions for Social Success and Failure.- Children's Assessments of the Meanings of Social Causes.- Some Conclusions Concerning Children's Social Attributions.- Attributions and Social Skills Training.- 7 The Influence of the Evaluator on Assessments of Children's Social Skills.- Teachers Versus Peers.- Age Trends in Peer Evaluations.- Peer and Teacher Identification of Extreme Groups.- Evaluator Differences in the Context of Interaction.- Conclusions.- III Selecting Populations for Interventions.- 8 Socially Withdrawn Children: An "At Risk" Population?.- Characteristics of Withdrawn Children.- Study I: Sociometric Status, Social-Cognitive Competence, and Self-Perceptions of Withdrawn Children.- Study II: The Role Relationships of Withdrawn Children.- 9 Fitting Social Skills Intervention to the Target Group.- Who Should Be Singled Out for Social Skills Intervention?.- Intervention With Children at Risk for Social Rejection.- 10 An Evolving Paradigm in Social Skill Training Research With Children.- Social Skill Training With Unpopular Children.- Evidence Concerning Effectiveness.- Which Low-Status Children Are Changing?.- Alternatives to the Negative Nomination Measure.- Conclusion.- IV Developing Intervention Procedures.- 11 Children's Social Skills Training: A Meta-Analysis.- Study Selection.- Study Features.- Statistical Analysis.- Training Technique.- Outcome Measure.- Therapist Characteristics.- Child Characteristics.- Duration of Intervention.- Limitations of This Study.- Implications for Clinicians and Educators.- Implications for SST Research.- Appendix: Final Data Pool.- 12 Programmatic Research on Peers as Intervention Agents for Socially Isolate Classmates.- Step 1 of Intervention Development Model.- Step 2 of Intervention Development Model.- Step 3 of Intervention Development Model.- Step 4 of Intervention Development Model.- Conclusions and Future Directions.- 13 Social Behavior Problems and Social Skills Training in Adolescence.- Social Difficulties in Adolescence.- The Components of Social Competence.- The Analysis of Social Situations.- Social Relationships in Adolescents.- Social Skills Training for Adolescents.- 14 Designing Effective Social Problem-Solving Programs for the Classroom.- Deciding to Conduct SPS Research: The Rochester Context.- Curriculum Content and Instructional Format Issues.- Structuring SPS Interventions to Succeed in the School Culture.- Concluding Comments.- 15 Documenting the Effects of Social Skill Training With Children: Process and Outcome Assessment.- Assumption 1: Children With Poor Peer Relations Lack Social Skills.- Types of Social Skill Deficits as Identified in Past Research.- Implications for Social Skill Training and Assessment.- Assumption 2: Children Learn Social Skills From Social Skill Training.- Assumption 3: The Skill Learning that Occurs in Social Skill Training Leads to Improved Peer Relations.- Author Index.