Cluster-randomized trial demonstrating impact on academic achievement of elementary social-emotional learning.

This study evaluated the results of a social and emotional learning (SEL) program on academic achievement among students attending a large, urban, high-risk school district. Using a cluster-randomized design, 24 elementary schools were assigned to receive either the intervention curriculum (Promoting Alternative Thinking Strategies, or PATHS) or a curriculum that delivered few if any SEL topics (i.e.

National trends in psychotropic medication use in young children: 1994-2009.

Objective: To examine recent national trends in psychotropic use for very young children at US outpatient medical visits.

Methods: Data for 2- to 5-year-old children (N = 43 598) from the 1994-2009 National Ambulatory and National Hospital Ambulatory Medical Care Surveys were used to estimate the weighted percentage of visits with psychotropic prescriptions. Multivariable logistic regression was used to identify factors associated with psychotropic use.

Using self- and parent-reports to test the association between peer victimization and internalizing symptoms in verbally fluent adolescents with ASD.

The current study tested the associations between peer victimization and internalizing symptoms in 54 verbally fluent adolescent males with a diagnosis of autism spectrum disorder. Adolescent- and parent-reports of multiple types of peer victimization and internalizing symptoms were used. First, the validity and reliability of the adolescent-report measure of peer victimization were successfully tested, with some exceptions.

Brief report: how anxiously withdrawn preadolescents think about friendship.

Previous research suggests that anxiously withdrawn preadolescents demonstrate success in forming friendships, yet these friendships tend to be of lesser quality. Drawing on Selman's (1980) theory of interpersonal understanding, we compared levels of friendship understanding between anxiously withdrawn preadolescents and a sample of non-withdrawn age mates. Fifth graders (N = 116; 58% girls; mean age = 10.

Distinguishing Children Who Form New Best-Friendships from Those Who Do Not.

Three groups were identified using best-friendship nominations at two time points surrounding the transition to middle school (Time 1: Spring of 5 grade; Time 2: Fall of 6 grade): (i) children who had no best-friendship at Time 1, but had a best-friendship at Time 2 (=109); (ii) children who had no best-friendship at either Time 1 or 2 (=105); and (iii) children with a best-friendship at both Times 1 and 2, but with different peers at each time (=120). Peer nominations of social behaviors and victimization were collected at Times 1 and 2. Findings suggest that attraction to similar others, in addition to increased displays of prosocial behaviors, facilitate the formation of best-friendships for both initially best-friendless and best-friended children.

Electronic and school-based victimization: unique contexts for adjustment difficulties during adolescence.

Previous research suggests that school-based and electronic victimization have similar negative consequences, yet it is unclear whether these two contexts offer overlapping or unique associations with adolescents' adjustment. 802 ninth-graders (43% male, mean age = 15.84 years), majority being Caucasian (82%), completed measures assessing the prevalence of school and electronic victimization, as well as self-reports on self-esteem, self-efficacy, anxiety, depressive symptoms, and locus of control.

Attachment, Social Information Processing, and Friendship Quality of Early Adolescent Girls and Boys.

Sixth-graders ( = 223; 109 girls) completed questionnaires assessing their attachment security with their mothers and fathers, their social information processing () when faced with ambiguously caused hypothetical negative events involving a close friend, and the quality of the relationship with that friend. Aspects of more maladaptive were significantly related to lower levels of security. The overall pattern of results did not provide strong evidence for mediation, although boys' anger did tend to mediate the relation between attachment to mother and friendship quality.

Do provocateurs' emotion displays influence children's social goals and problem solving?

The social goals and social problem-solving of children who varied in social adjustment were examined in the context of hypothetical ambiguous provocation situations in which provocateurs' emotion displays were systematically manipulated. Children rated the importance of six different social goals and explained how they would solve the problems. Social adjustment was measured with rating and nomination sociometric procedures.

The influence of provocateurs' emotion displays on the social information processing of children varying in social adjustment and age.

This study examined the effect of provocateurs' emotion displays on first through fourth graders' social information processing (SIP). Rating and nomination sociometric techniques were used to identify rejected-aggressive, rejected-nonaggressive, average-nonaggressive, and popular-nonaggressive groups. Children viewed videotaped ambiguous provocation situations in which provocateurs' emotion displays were varied systematically.