This study, involving four staff members in an institution for people with mental retardation, found that a computerized system of prompts to improve staff-client interactions produced more positive statements, improved distribution of interaction among clients, and resulted in delivery of more positive reinforcement than a traditional…

Examines the potential usefulness of intensive interaction as an educational methodology with pupils whose learning difficulties are compounded by autism. Review of empirical case-study evidence together with questionnaire and interview data from teachers suggests that this intensive approach to developing fundamental social and communication…

This study compared effects of either a teacher-mediated social skills intervention or an integrated activities intervention on social interaction among young (ages four to six) children with and without hearing impairments. The social skills intervention successfully increased social interactions among deaf and hard-of-hearing children, but…

This monograph describes the curriculum and teaching methods used to teach socialization skills at the Boys Town (Nebraska) special residential school for boys with behavioral disorders as well as replications of the Boys Town model in other locations. The model takes the basic techniques of the schools's Family/Home model and applies them to…

Educational cognitive style refers to a person's preferred ways of gathering meaning from surroundings. It involves four groups of behaviors: receiving, expressing, reasoning, and handling the receiving/expressing in specific settings or modalities. A comparison of communication and educational cognitive style shows that several ideas are common…

This paper examines some of the conversational skills manifested by children within a nursery group as they organize their own activities among themselves and cope with social and didactic demands of adults. Among the features examined are the number of active and passive participants within conversing groups, the intentions and pragmatic…

In order to choose among several strategies of cross-cultural training, a standard experimental paradigm is needed to inexpensively generate reliable and valid data. The research presented in this document provides what appears to be such a paradigm. It involves the presentation of intercultural conflict to subjects, under standardized conditions.…

This study assessed collateral effects during unstructured dinnertime family interactions of two different paradigms for training parents of 17 children with autism. One taught individual target behaviors serially, and the other taught the pivotal responses (PRT) of motivation and responsivity to multiple cues. Results suggested the PRT…

This manual was developed in order to study the sociomoral atmospheres of three kindergarten classrooms. Previous research by Robert Selman et al. conceptualized developmental levels of interpersonal understanding in terms of two types of experiences: negotiation, where the developmental goal is identity separate from others; and shared…

The way that mothers' input assists children with the use of their linguistic resources for negotiating peer interaction was studied. Two two-year-old girls and their mothers were videotaped once a month for eight months while the foursome met at a weekly playgroup. The mothers' language was analyzed in terms of the following questions: (1) Does…

This study investigated the child rearing environments in 8 community based day care centers and 16 family day care homes and the social competencies of the toddlers enrolled in them. Subjects were forty 19-month-old toddlers from similar backgrounds, half in each type of day care. Socially directed behaviors between the toddler and peers, and…

The purposes of this paper are: (1) to identify uses of the term social competence for preschool and early school children, with origins directly in research, and (2) to formulate a definition of social competence reflecting consensus across three different research perspectives. From an ethnological perspective, social competence consists of…

"Sensitivity Training and Group Encounter" attempts to explore group interaction on many levels--verbal, sensory, and physical. It can be utilized as a model for dealing with various forms of interpersonal relations, from ongoing social issues to the isolation, alienation, and distrust felt by the members of a group. Presented as a guide to this…

Two studies with four adolescents with behavior disorders investigated the relationship between antecedent events and aggressive behavior in school and home settings. The use of videotape recordings and behavioral rehearsal of alternative responses resulted in decreases in the frequency of aggressive behavior and associated antecedent events. (DB)

Investigates the social background of oldcomer Taiwanese in Japan while examining their language behavior in intraethnic communication and in interethnic interaction with Japanese. Analysis of two conversations reveals that many Asians seek to pass as Japanese, a behavior contributing to the reproduction of the existing social hierarchy of…