Students' social and emotional development is vital in today's education, especially in light of changing family structures. This paper examines implications of recent cultural changes which have resulted in positive and negative changes in students' social and emotional needs, then describes and presents approaches to social and emotional…

Psychodrama as a therapeutic exercise and a format for understanding emotional and cognitive development is a form of experiential learning that can help adults practice inner reflection and imagine change. (SK)

Parents of highly gifted children are encouraged to use resources found in the work of Leta Hollingworth (1886-1939) as they cope with child-rearing challenges in the areas of emotional needs, discipline, and problems associated with school such as avoiding negative attitudes toward authority. (DB)

Forty-eight children aged four and six years listened to stories in which it would be appropriate for the protagonist to feel a negative emotion. Results indicated that six-year-olds were more accurate than four-year-olds in judging that real and apparent emotion would not coincide when the protagonist hid feelings. (RJC)

The article describes two approaches, based on the ideas of Jerome Bruner, to helping gifted students handle the social-emotional tasks involved in actualizing their abilities. One approach stresses developmental principles of Bruner while the other applies Bruner's principles to personal and group empowering. (DB)

The author presents the "Prayer of St. Francis of Assisi" as a suggested format for counselors to use as a meditation and compares the aspirations expressed in this prayer with goals upheld by established related professional ethical standards of the American Counseling Association and the American Psychological Association. (LKS)

Highlights the contributions made by the papers in this special issue, and discusses remaining research problems and future research directions in the field of children's emotions and social competence. Notes that one of the most important points raised in this series of papers is the critical role of socialization in the development of emotions.…

This retrospective case study investigates the experiences of a highly gifted young artist and two mentors who guided his high school development. Examination of the mentors' influences on the artist's cognitive and affective development found that the mentorship validated the boy's style of thinking, sharpened metacognitive abilities, helped with…

This editorial, introducing a special issue on social-emotional development of students with learning disabilities, reviews general trends in recent research and curriculum development. The editorial presents social-emotional development as the next major area (following cognitive, metacognitive, and behavioral studies) from which meaningful…

This article discusses the history of the idea that "genius is akin to madness" and notes that studies of distinguished individuals suggest that mental instability is incompatible with the prolonged and goal-directed effort required for high achievement. The issue of emotional stability is examined from the perspective of childhood…

Attachment theory is based on Bowlby's work on the connections between maternal loss or deprivation and personality development and on Ainsworth's interest in security theory. Their separate and joint work is reviewed, along with that of other theorists and researchers whose work influenced them or was influenced by them. (LB)

Investigated the role of the mother-daughter relationship in the process of psychological separation in adolescence. Found that maternal empathy was significantly related to psychological separation in the middle-adolescent subjects. The discrepancy between the level of daughters' representations of themselves, and their more primitive…

Explored patterns of emotional communication in 70 mother-infant dyads, emphasizing both mother and child roles in affect regulation. Display of maternal positive and negative affects decreased with age; child affects were unchanged. Maternal sensitivity was associated with maternal matching of son's affects and daughter's creation of shared…

Affective expressions of 11 toddlers with Down's syndrome and 11 toddlers with no disabilities were compared during participation with a parent in a social referencing procedure. Although expressions of both toddler groups were equally labile and intense, only toddlers without Down's syndrome tended to match their parents' expressions. (Author/DB)

Examined the effects of prenatal drug exposure on adopted children's behavior, temperament, health, and school adjustment by comparing the experiences of 3 cohorts of children: (1) 320 drug-exposed children; (2) 456 children who were not drug exposed; and (3) 620 children whose drug exposure was unknown. Two years after placement no significant…