Social behaviors, social‐cognitive skills, and clinicians’ judgments of children referred for aggression

Abstract

Aggressive, affiliative, and play interactions for a group of clinic‐referred aggressive 6‐year‐olds (n = 11) were observed over a six week social‐cognitive training program. Freeplay data showed significant decreases in aggression and significant increases in affiliation and associative play. Aggressive behaviors were structured into a dominance hierarchy before affiliative relations were established; however, the hierarchy's function in regulating aggression contrasted with reports of non‐clinic samples. Behavioral data, clinical judgments, and children's performance on social‐cognitive tasks provided concurrent social skill validity assessments. Clinicians’ assessments of children's social competence were significantly associated with changes in social play behaviors. Whereas children improved significantly on a number of social cognitive tasks, only their self‐concept scores correlated significantly with pro‐social behavior changes. Results demonstrate a useful within‐group method for monitoring socia...