Development Of Social Skills In Children Research Articles

A systematic review of the efficacy of group social skills interventions on social functioning and social participation in children with acquired brain injury or cerebral palsy.

The aim of this study was to evaluate the efficacy of Group social skills interventions (GSSIs) versus any comparator on social functioning in children aged 5-12 years with acquired brain injury or cerebral palsy. GSSIs are an evidence-based approach to foster social skills development in children with autism spectrum disorder. Currently, limited literature exploring GSSIs in children with acquired brain injury and cerebral palsy is available. MEDLINE, SCOPUS, Embase, CINAHL, Cochrane Library, PsycINFO, clinicaltrials.gov, ICTRP and ProQuest Dissertations and Theses were systematically searched. Study screening, risk-of-bias, Grading of Recommendations Assessment, Development and Evaluation and data extraction were performed in duplicate. Six studies were included in the narrative synthesis (one randomised controlled trial and five nonrandomised studies). Results indicate that GSSIs may increase children's social skills as measured on the Social Skills Rating System and Social Skills Questionnaire. Very low certainty evidence was found for improvements in social functioning and competence. There is low certainty evidence that participation in GSSI may lead to gains in social functioning for children with acquired brain injury or cerebral palsy. Given the certainty of the evidence, these results must be interpreted with caution. Only one randomised controlled trial of GSSIs for children with acquired brain injury was identified, underscoring the need for additional high-quality studies.

Enhancing Social Skills Development in Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder: An Evaluation of the “Power of Camp Inclusion” Program

Enhancing Social Skills Development in Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder: An Evaluation of the “Power of Camp Inclusion” Program

Effects of Sports, Play, and Active Recreation for Kids (Spark) Versus Fundamental Motor Skill Training on Social Skill Development in Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder

Background: Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) presents significant challenges in social skills development in children. Recent research has suggested the potential benefits of physical activity-based interventions in addressing these challenges. Objective: This study aimed to compare the effectiveness of Sports, Play, and Active Recreation for Kids (SPARK) and Fundamental Motor Skill Training (FMS) in improving social skills in children with ASD. Methods: A comparative study involving two groups, each consisting of nine children diagnosed with ASD, was conducted. Both groups underwent 30 sessions over a 10-week period. Group A participated in the SPARK program, while Group B was engaged in FMS. The social skills were assessed using the Gillium Autism Rating Scale, both before and after the intervention. Results: The study found significant improvements in communication behaviors in the SPARK group, suggesting its effectiveness in enhancing social interaction. While both SPARK and FMS showed benefits in social skill development, SPARK had a more pronounced effect on communication behaviors. Conclusion: Both SPARK and FMS programs were effective in improving social skills in children with ASD, with SPARK showing a particularly strong impact on communication abilities. These findings support the inclusion of physical activity-based interventions in treatment strategies for ASD.

Exploring the Power of Hide-and-Seek: A Promising Approach to Foster Social Skills Development in Children at TK Al-Fadlilah Yogyakarta

This scientific article investigates the potential of the game "Hide and Seek" in promoting children's social skills. While past research has extensively examined other facets of child development, the impact of "Hide and Seek" on children's social development remains underexplored and vaguely defined. Thus, this study aims to fill this knowledge gap. The research uses a quantitative experimental method, employing a "Pre-Experimental One Group Pretest Post-test Design" without a control group. A non-probability sampling technique with a saturated sample type is used. Findings reveal that "Hide and Seek" significantly enhances social skills among children at TK Al-Fadlilah, Yogyakarta, with teachers serving as essential facilitators in this process. Data analysis demonstrates a significant increase in social skills, represented by a Wilcoxon test score of 0.000, under the 0.05 threshold. However, the limitations of this study include a relatively small sample size and a single educational setting, restricting the generalization of the results. Future research involving larger, diverse samples and a focus on understanding the best ways "Hide and Seek" and similar activities can support early childhood social development is strongly recommended.

Context is key: Parasympathetic regulation in the classroom differentially predicts preschoolers' socially competent behaviors.

Research shows that children's early social competence predicts their later academic and interpersonal success. Accordingly, early childhood education programs increasingly aim to evaluate and support children's social skill development. Despite ample theoretical and empirical work demonstrating the role of the parasympathetic nervous system (PNS) in supporting neurophysiological processes that underlie social behaviors, no study has explicitly tested whether the assessment of PNS activity in childhood educational settings provides insight into children's social functioning. The current study addresses this gap by examining the influence of context-specific PNS regulation, assessed via respiratory sinus arrhythmia (RSA), in predicting preschool children's socially competent behavior toward peers in the classroom. Results showed that: (1) RSA withdrawal (e.g., decreases relative to a baseline task) during unstructured classroom activities predicted children's socially competent behaviors during these unstructured activities but not during structured activities, whereas (2) withdrawal during structured classroom activities predicted children's socially competent behaviors during structured activities. These results indicate that PNS activity makes context-specific contributions to children's social behaviors and highlight the importance of assessing neurophysiological regulation in context.

Social skills development in children with ASD in a foreign language classroom

Social skills development in children with ASD in a foreign language classroom

Social skills in preschool children with unilateral and mild bilateral hearing loss

ABSTRACTHearing loss may represent a risk for developing social skills difficulties; however, little is known about the potential risk resulting from unilateral or mild bilateral hearing loss (UMHL). We compared the social skills of 14 children with UMHL and 21 children with moderate to severe hearing loss (MSHL) with those of 123 children with typical hearing (TH). All the children were 4–5 years old, and all the children with hearing loss used hearing aids. The study was carried out in Norway. Associations between social skills and age at amplification and vocabulary skills were examined. The children with UMHL had lower social skills than the TH children, whereas the children with MSHL received scores similar to those of the TH children. The children with UMHL were detected and amplified later than the children with MSHL. Early amplification was associated with better social skills but not with better vocabulary. The results suggest that despite a limited effect on vocabulary development, early intervention is likely to promote social skills development in children with UMHL.

Why Some Children Come to School with “Baggage”: The Effects of Trauma Due to Poverty, Attachment Disruption and Disconnection on Social Skills and Relationships

Children living in adverse conditions of poverty and/or abuse or in institutional or foster care, suffer physiological changes in their developing brains which negatively affect their social skills and therefore their ability to socialize and form meaningful connections with others. Impeded social skills development also interferes with children’s ability to demonstrate self-control, to learn and to demonstrate appropriate behaviour. Their physical and emotional health and wellbeing also suffer. Without greater understanding, intervention and support from schools, the future for these children continues to look extremely bleak. The emotional and social costs are high. This paper looks at the effects of trauma due to poverty, parent-child separation (attachment disruption) and disconnection on social skills development in children and the reasons why some children who have experienced adversity early in their lives, come to school with “baggage”. It takes a cursory look at the effects of emotional trauma on the developing brain and examines why affected children often demonstrate anti-social behaviour and struggle with forming meaningful relationships and learning in school. Also considered are the problems encountered by some children at the upper end of the socioeconomic spectrum, most particularly their difficulties making friends.

The impact of video modelling on improving social skills in children with autism

Children with autism often show a lack of the interactive social skills that would allow them to engage with others successfully. They therefore frequently need training to aid them in successful social interaction. Video modelling is a widely used instructional technique that has been applied to teach children with developmental disabilities such as autism, and has been shown to be effective in teaching a variety of skills. The aim of this study is to evaluate the impact of video modelling on social skills development in children with autism living in the United Arab Emirates. The research was carried out by Mohammed Alzyoudi, AbedAlziz Sartawi and Osha Almuhiri, all from the United Arab Emirates University. A sample of five boys with autism was chosen to participate in this study. The boys ranged in age between five and seven years. Each child was asked to watch a videotape which presented two individuals interacting in a role‐play setting. One person portrayed a therapist giving cues, while the second portrayed a child acting appropriately and demonstrating correct social behaviours. The boys were then asked to complete a social task and their performance was compared against baseline assessment measures. The results of this study indicate that this is an effective instruction method. Results are discussed and implications for further research and practice are provided.

Disentangling the Associations Between Contextual Stress, Sensitive Parenting, and Children's Social Development

The impact of an accumulation of sociocontextual stress on children's social skill development was examined among 167 predominantly African American mothers and their 2‐year‐old children. Two theoretical models were considered. First, based on Rutter's (1979) cumulative risk approach, an accumulation of stress was hypothesized to moderate the impact of sensitive parenting on change in social skills such that the protective effects of sensitive parenting declined when cumulative stress reached a critical threshold. Second, based on a family stress model approach, an accumulation of stress was expected to indirectly affect social skills by way of sensitive parenting; that is, sensitive parenting was expected to explain or mediate any direct links between cumulative stress and children's social skills. Results were only consistent with the moderational hypothesis. Contrary to expectations, sensitive parenting predicted increases in social skills from age 2 to 4 only under conditions of the highest cumulative stress.

Transitions between food insecurity and food security predict children's social skill development during elementary school

Recent findings indicate that household food insecurity affects children's social skill development in the early years of elementary school. It is important to assess the persistency of developmental consequences and investigate whether all categories of social skills are equally affected by food insecurity experiences. The present paper estimates population-averaged and subject-specific models for children's social skill scores reported by school teachers using longitudinal data on 2310 boys and 2400 girls in the USA enrolled in the 1st (aged 6-9 years), 3rd (aged 8-11 years) and 5th (aged 10-13 years) grades (1999-2003) from the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study-Kindergarten. The main findings are, first, significantly (P<0·05) negative, contemporaneous and transitional relationships between food insecurity experiences and children's social skill scores are evident. Estimates based on sex-stratified samples indicate that the contemporaneous association is strongest among girls, while the association of an early transition from food insecurity in the 1st grade to food security in the 3rd grade is strongest among boys. Second, food insecurity experiences predict children's social skill scores emphasising self-control, attentiveness and task persistence, rather than interpersonal relationships or externalising behaviour. Overall, the findings underscore the multifaceted effect that household food insecurity has on children's social skills and provide the strongest empirical evidence to date that the experiences are linked with non-nutritional developmental consequences for children over a time horizon spanning several years.

Evidence appears limited for group-based social skills training for school-age children with Autism Spectrum Disorders, but this review may not tell the whole story

ed from: White, S. W., Keonig, K., & Scahill, L. (2007). Social skills development in children with autism spectrum disorders: A review of the intervention research. Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders, 37, 1858–1868. Source of funding: National Institutes of Mental Health Childhood Neuropsychiatric Disorders Training Grant; Organization for Autism Research.

Gender differences of children's social skills and parenting using Interaction Rating Scale (IRS)

Background: The purpose of this paper is to describe the gender differences of the Interaction Rating Scale (IRS) as an evidence-based practical index of children's social skills and parenting.Methods: The participants in our study, which was conducted as part of a Japan Science and Technology Agency (JST) cohort study project, were 370 dyads of children with their caregivers were followed up and surveyed at aged 18, 30, and 42 month. The participants completed the five minute interaction session and were observed using the IRS.Results: The results indicated the gender differences of IRS scores. Girls got rather high score at all ages. IRS can measure children's social skill development and parenting with high validity. Along with the qualitative differences of interaction between boys and girls, the IRS is effective in describing features of social skill development and parenting.Conclusion: The IRS provides further evidence of the fact that in order to study children's social skill development, it is important to evaluate various features of the caregiver-child interaction as a predictor of social skills.

Behavioral risk, teacher–child relationships, and social skill development across middle childhood: A child-by-environment analysis of change

The purposes of the present study were to examine the growth trajectories of children's social skills from kindergarten through sixth grade, and to investigate the roles of early behavior problems and teacher–child relationships in children's social skill development, using data from phases I, II, and III of the NICHD Study of Early Child Care and Youth Development. There were four main findings. First, on average, children showed curvilinear social skill growth trajectories from kindergarten to sixth grade, with periods of marked acceleration in the early and later elementary years and a period of slight deceleration in the late elementary years. Second, children with higher levels of preschool internalizing behavior problems demonstrated lower levels of kindergarten social skills and qualitatively different social skill growth trajectories than their less-internalizing peers over time. Third, children with higher-quality teacher–child relationships demonstrated greater social skills from kindergarten through sixth grade than their peers with lower-quality relationships. The magnitude of the effect for teacher–child relationships increased as children aged and was marginally stronger for children with lower levels of early internalizing problems. Implications for theory and practice are discussed.

The Role of Family in the Development of Social Skills in Children with Physical Disabilities

This study aims to identify the family characteristics that promote the development of social skills in children with physical disabilities. Parents and teachers completed a range of questionnaires in an Australia‐wide study of 212 parents of children (5–12 years of age) with physical disabilities who attend mainstream schools. The relationships between parental attitudes, parental involvement, family relationships, teachers’ opinions, disability severity, and children’s social skills were tested using structural equation modelling. The results of this study show the importance of family characteristics for the development of social skills in children with physical disabilities. A strong link was found between aspects of healthy family relationships, especially high levels of parental involvement with schooling, and greater social skills development in children. In short, families with highly cohesive, idealised, and democratic family styles strongly influence children’s social skills by providing a safe and sound foundation for children to explore their social environment. Practical implications arising from this study are discussed.

Social Skills Development in Children with Autism Spectrum Disorders: A Review of the Intervention Research

Social reciprocity deficits are a core feature of the autism spectrum disorders (ASD). This review summarizes the state of research in group-based social skills training programs for school-age children and adolescents with ASD. All published studies of group social skills interventions between 1985 and 2006 were reviewed, as well as dissertations examining group-based social skills intervention programs. To assess the state of the science, a template developed by an NIMH work group was applied to 14 identified studies. Based on this review, the empirical support for this approach is incomplete, but promising intervention strategies were identified. Recommendations for the design of future treatment trials to guide clinical practice are offered.

Promoção de habilidades sociais em pré-escolares

Social skills promotion in the child's relationships, in a preventive level, provides the development of and improvement in social competence, resulting in greater adaptability to the social environment. This research aimed to verify the effectiveness of a preventive program of social skills development in children between 4 and 6 years old and their parents. The results reflect the performance of 9 children of both sexes, with age between 5 and 6 years. CBCL (Achenbach, 1991) was used as the analysis instrument, answered by parents about the children's behaviors, before and after the participation in the program. Based on this analysis, it was possible to observe that there is a statistical difference between CBCL results before and after intervention, indicating changes in parents' perception about their children's behaviors and the probable increase in behaviors that facilitate social interaction.

Modeling Intraindividual Changes in Children's Social Skills at Home and at School: A Multivariate Latent Growth Approach to Understanding Between-Settings Differences in Children's Social Skill Development

Multivariate latent growth modeling was used to conceptualize and analyze intraindividual changes in children's social skills and interindividual differences in these changes in home and school settings. Parent and teacher ratings assessing children's social skills at home and school settings, respectively, were obtained for a sample of 378 children at 4 time points spaced at approximately 12-month intervals over a 4-year period from Kindergarten to Grade 3. Results showed that, in initial status at Kindergarten, there were significant individual differences in social skills in both home and school settings and a significant positive association between initial status in social skills in the two settings. Systematic between-settings differences in children's social skill development were found. Social skills development at home was best described with a nonlinear trajectory in which skills increased from Kindergarten to Grade 2 with a substantially larger increase from Grade 1 to Grade 2 than from Kindergarten to Grade 1, and then remained relatively constant from Grade 2 to Grade 3. In contrast, social skills development at school was best described with a negative linear trajectory in which skills decreased at a constant rate from Kindergarten to Grade 3. The differences in social skills development may derive form the fact that different teachers with different expectations regarding social skills provided ratings each year while the same parent was the source of at-home social skills ratings. There were significant individual differences in growth rates in the school as well as the home setting. Evidence of between-settings differences in social skills development were obtained from differential patterns of associations between growth parameters (initial status and growth rate) and individual predictors (family income, parent education, child verbal skills) across settings.

Role of Music Therapy in Social Skills Development in Children with Moderate Intellectual Disability

AbstractThe present study investigated the effectiveness of a music therapy programme in the enhancement of the social skills of children with moderate intellectual disability. Thirty‐two children (age range = 5–10 years) from four intellectual disability centres participated. At each centre, four children were randomly selected to participate in the music therapy programme, while four children were assigned to a non‐music control group programme. One staff member was trained in each group procedure at each centre, and requested to run 30‐min group sessions twice weekly over an 8‐week intervention period. Five social skills were targeted for intervention: turn‐taking, imitation, vocalization, initiation and eye contact. Measures of effectiveness involved comparison of pre‐ and post‐intervention scores on five target skills using a brief social skills test specifically designed for the study. Evaluation forms completed by teachers also provided feedback on the effectiveness of the intervention. The results reflect significant improvements in the five target social skills across both conditions following the 8‐week intervention. However, this difference was found to be independent of the music/non‐music intervention.