This study investigates the similarities and differences between Hong Kong kindergarteners' shyness and social anxiety and their possible relations with social emotional adjustment and the development of receptive language abilities. Data were collected from three kindergartens, with 71 children (mean age = 52.6 months, SD = 7.28; 48% boys) and…

Universal SEL interventions have garnered increasing attention in educational systems worldwide, including in Portuguese schools, with short- and long-term benefits for students, such as social and emotional competencies, academic performance, and positive attitudes and behaviours. Using a pre- and post-test design, the current study aims to…

Background: Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) is a common neurodevelopmental condition, more often diagnosed in males. In many individuals, particularly females, ADHD is diagnosed later or missed, the reasons for this are not fully understood. Timely diagnosis is needed to provide support, management, and treatment to improve…

Recent studies have shown that children with developmental language disorder (DLD) often face challenges in emotion recognition (ER) skills, which impacts their social and behavioural outcomes. This study aims to evaluate the effectiveness of a flexible online intervention in meeting the individual needs of children with DLD, focusing on ER…

The pandemic induced a radical shift to online learning with increased parental involvement. This study investigates the challenges that students with specific learning difficulties (SpLD) encountered during the pandemic and the mediating role of parental stress. A total of 294 parents of children with SpLD (mean age = 10.6; SD = 1.5) were…

In this study, we sought to determine if the "Scales for Assessing Emotional Disturbance -- Third Edition" ("SAED-3"; Epstein et al., 2020) demonstrated adequate validity using criterion validation techniques. The associations between the "SAED-3" subscales and composite scores were examined in relation to similar…

People with high skills have a different behavioural repertoire and generally, such characteristics define their type of gifted. However, we do not have conclusive data regarding the characteristics of this population, since it is an area of study that generates many controversies, and when it comes to socio-emotional characteristics,…

While the role of empathy in socio-emotional functioning has received extensive support in the literature, affective empathy has been identified as a risk factor for internalising disorders. However, little literature has explored the mechanisms through which affective empathy exerts its counter-effect and what aspects could regulate this…

The Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ) is a brief instrument developed primarily for screening children and adolescents for social-emotional learning. The SDQ contains four factors related to socio-emotional difficulties and one factor related to prosocial behaviour. However, studies of its factor structure have produced mixed results.…

Background: Studies suggest that prosocial behavior, having high empathy and engaging in behaviors intended to benefit others, may predict mental health or vice versa; however, these findings have been mixed. The purpose of the current study was to examine the bidirectional relationships between prosocial behavior and dimensions of psychopathology…

Research Findings: Empathy plays an important role in children's early social-emotional development. However, there are not many instruments available for measuring the different aspects/levels of empathy in preschool children. Moreover, few studies examined the validity of the existing measures for empathy in Chinese children. The present study…

Background: The reciprocal relationships between literacy skills and various subscales of mental health have been examined in few studies. The objective is to re-examine this question in a longitudinal study with the possibility of a gender effect. Methods: A 4-year longitudinal study was conducted as part of the French national cohort ELFE (N =…

Objective: This cross-sectional study investigated social opportunities in children at risk for ADHD in regular primary education classrooms. First, we aimed to compare social preference of children at risk for ADHD and of their unilateral friends, with their classmates. Second, we hypothesized that for the at risk-group higher levels of problem…

Background: ADHD is the most common neurodevelopmental disorder. While much is known about the functional and academic impacts of ADHD, impacts on long-term health-related quality of life (HRQoL) are less well-documented. Aims: To explore, in children aged 4 to 17 years, associations between clinical ADHD symptoms and (1) children's HRQoL; (2)…

Delay of gratification tasks have an impressive predictive value for various outcomes and are designed to measure self-regulation. Since many behavioural and psychological conditions in children are related to limitations in self-regulation, the extent to which delay tasks can be used as a screening for the detection of psychopathology is…