Statue building complements the counselor's usual skills to help children understand and express their emotions and gain a heightened sense of awareness. Statue building promotes empathy for the feelings of others and provides an opportunity for children to increase their ability to express emotions. (Author)

Much research has been done on the negative effects of divorce on children. Future research should focus on how positive family functioning and support systems can facilitate the development of social, emotional, and intellectual competence in children in single parent families. (Author/GC)

A few tips for helping students who are designated as disabled integrate into the regular school setting socially as well as academically are offered to administrators and teachers. (KC)

Examines new studies of family-level dynamics that explain individual variability in early socioemotional development. Shows that family processes help explain unique variance in conceptually related measures of child development. Reviews studies showing prospective links between family processes during infancy and behavior at age 4, and…

Stresses the importance of camps fostering the self-esteem and emotional intelligence of campers by creating an envelope of physical safety, building emotional security, creating a sense of identity, developing a sense of belonging, nurturing competence, and achieving a sense of mission. Discusses achieving this goal through cooperation with…

Overviews the nature of self-esteem and describes various dimensions of self-esteem, including gaining a sense of competency and experiencing acceptance by others. Strategies for camps include establishing goals for camper achievement, creating developmentally appropriate camp activities, and training staff with the necessary skills for enhancing…

Longitudinal videotape recordings of six young children with autism and six age- and language-matched children with Down syndrome in structured play with their mothers were analyzed. Findings of reduced expression of positive affect by autistic subjects suggest that their known deficits in attention and affective responsiveness persisted even in…

Examined differences in self-reported psychiatric symptomatology on the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory-2 according to the Adult Attachment Interview in first-time mothers from a high-risk poverty sample. Different symptom patterns were consistent with adult attachment status as an index of self-representation and as a set of…

Research on the communication, language, social, and emotional development of people with autism is reviewed, concerning individuals who either are nonspeaking/limited speaking or use speech as their primary mode of linguistic communication. Research needs for longitudinal studies, investigation of early developmental patterns, and subgroup…

This study modeled physical and psychosocial aspects of home environment and personal characteristics in a cumulative risk heuristic. Found that elevated cumulative risk was associated with heightened cardiovascular and neuroendocrine parameters, increased deposition of body fat, and higher summary index of total allostatic load. Replicated…

Sociocultural poetry can be used in conjunction with a 6-step counselor empathy model to help gifted students understand the lived experiences of others, as well as explore their own feelings and thoughts about self in relation to the world. The model can also be utilized to develop basic empathy skills. (Contains references.) (Author/CR)

Describes ambivalent, avoidant, and disorganized attachment patterns. Proposes that avoidant individuals deactivate their attachment needs, have high sense of self efficacy, and prefer objects to people; ambivalent persons hyperactivate attachment needs, have low self-efficacy, and orient more to people; and disorganized/controlling individuals…

Explored interface between preschoolers' socio-emotional characteristics and interactions with teachers during free play. Found that children who most frequently initiated teacher interaction behaved more aggressively than peers and were so rated by teachers. Children who most frequently received teacher initiations were more shy and anxious.…

Describes an empirical study that examined the impact of being carried on a parent's back on a child's visual integration pathways. Draws on a previous study (Pretorius et al.) postulating that this cultural behavior could have a negative impact as it prevents the child from crawling adequately or enough during the sensorimotor stage. (Author)

A study evaluated a person-centered counseling intervention on the self-concept of four children (ages 6-12) with moderate mental retardation. The study used person-centered art therapy as an adjunct to counseling. Three of the children indicated an improved self-concept. However, only one teacher indicated a positive movement within the child.…