Included in this 84-page manual are:
Scripts for five lessons (listening to others, asking to play, helping others, sharing, problem-solving)
Illustrations for each skill
Review lessons
Badges for reinforcing students
Ideas for generalizing the skills
Ways to promote skills during free-play periods
Homenotes for parents
Is available in French
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Early Childhood and Kindergarten Program
Included are:
Teacher guidebook
Student guide
Script for the introductory tape
Introductory Tape
Tape 2: Bullying
Tape 3: Joining-in
Tape 4: Teasing
Tape 5: Stealing
Tape 6: Getting Distracted
Tape 7: Dealing wht Social Pressure
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Classwide Social Problem Solving Program
MENTAL HEALTH NEEDS OF CHILDREN
It has been estimated that in about one in six students suffers from adjustment problems (Esser, Schmidt, & Woerner, 1990; Offord, Boyle & Racine, 1991). The stability of childhood mental health disorders increases with severity of symptoms, the number of settings in which the child’s problems occurs, and the early onset of the disorder (Coie, Underwood, & Lochman, 1991; Loeber & Dishion, 1983; Reid & Patterson, 1991). For instance, about half the children identified with conduct disorders at age eight, continue to display these problems at age 13 (Esser, Schmidt, & Woerner, 1990).
Child maladjustment tends to be associated with other difficulties concurrently affecting a child’s functioning. For instance, aggressive children tend to do poorly in academic subjects (Hinshaw, 1992), drop out of school early (Parker & Asher, 1987), abuse drugs (Farrington, 1991), and commit juvenile criminal acts (Zigler, Taussig, & Black, 1992). Childhood maladjustment is also predictive of later psychopathology (Parker & Asher, 1987). About 40% of adults with emotional disorders displayed adjustment problems as children (Rutter & Giller, 1983).
The high toll of child adjustment problems is a concern both of the public and educators (Gallop, 1983). Dealing with behavior management in the classroom takes up a major proportion of a teacher’s time and detracts from the quality of class instruction (Swift, & Spivack, 1976). The need to find accessible and effective ways of promoting the healthy social development of children is strong and compelling.
Population-Based Services The challenge of childhood maladjustment is unlikely to be met through increased availability of one-to-one professional treatment. Although therapeutic interventions may help some individuals (Zaragoza, Vaughn, & McIntosh, 1991), maladjusted children tend not to access professional services in enough numbers to have a major impact on the entire population in need (Offord et al., 1991). The burden of suffering for the population of children at risk for maladjustment is unlikely to be reduced unless a large proportion receive an intervention to bring about lasting adjustment.
A promising direction is to teach social skills that address deficits that contribute to the adjustment problems experienced by these children. Social skills deficits have been identified as an important factor in the developmental pathway towards childhood aggression (Bierman, 1986; Hawkins & Weis,1985; Patterson, Capaldi, & Bank, 1991). Maladjusted children have been found to show social skill deficits in at least three domains. One domain is deficits in interpersonal behaviors that result in poor peer acceptance. For instance, maladjusted children show higher rates of aggression in their play (e.g. yelling, hitting, kicking), have difficulty initiating, sustaining and adjusting their play interactions to fit the activities of the group (Bierman,1989).
A second domain is deficits in social problem solving (Elias et al., 1986). Aggressive/rejected children tend to over-interpret hostility in other children’s behaviors and generate fewer solutions to hypothetical problems situations than non-aggressive children. The solutions these children do pose are more apt to contain themes of violence (Parker & Asher, 1987) and anger (Asher & Renshaw, 1981). Aggressive/rejected children also tend to have difficulty in inhibiting their impulses and in governing their own actions (Bierman, 1989).
Finally, aggressive/rejected children tend to be depressed, lonely and have low self-esteem. They come to expect failure in their interpersonal relationships and attribute this failure to events beyond their control (Asher, Hymel, & Renshaw, 1984).
SOCIAL SKILLS DELIVERY MODELS
A number of social skills programs have been developed for use with maladapted children (see reviews by Hughes, & Sullivan, 1988; Schneider, 1992; Zaragoza, Vaughn, & McIntosh, 1991). Most of these programs contain similar instructional techniques and selected social skills (Rose, 1982). Typically, children learn interpersonal behaviors and social problem solving skills by a combination of modelling, role playing, and feedback (Zaragoza, Vaughn, & McIntosh, 1991). Although many social skills programs share these features, they tend to differ in how they deliver training (Elias et al., 1986). Interventions to promote social competence in children vary in: (a) the setting in which the intervention occurs; (b) the recipients of the intervention; and, (c) the change agent who delivers the intervention.
Clinic-based, Individual-focussed
Early attempts at social skills training tended to be provided to children with fully-developed emotional problems in specialized settings such as a treatment center (e.g., Kazdin, Bass, Siegel, & Thomas, 1989), a school for children with learning disabilities (e.g., Berler, Gross, & Drabman, 1982), or a special summer camp (e.g., Kettlewell & Kausch, 1983). As previously stated, one of the major limitations of a “passive/receptive” model of service delivery is that relatively few of the children with adjustment problems are captured by referrals to a specialized setting. For this reason alone, it is unlikely that a clinic-based intervention will effectively deal with the numbers of children ar risk for adjustment problems.
School-based, Individual-focussed
The problems of low exposure of the child population to an intervention may be overcome, at least in part, by providing the intervention in settings in which children are present, such as schools. Access to interventions provided in schools would be uniform and convenient (Coie, Underwood, & Lochman, 1991). Children with adjustment problems have been identified by teacher rating, peer rating, and/or direct observation of classroom behaviors. Social skills training then is provided to identified children individually (e.g., Coie, Underwood, & Lochman, 1991), in dyads (e.g., Mize & Ladd, 1990), or in small groups (e.g., Tremblay et al. 1992). Typically, the social skill instruction is conducted out of classrooms and under the direction of non-teachers (Furman et al., 1989).
Although the provision of social skills to specially formed groups of maladjusted children in schools may produce initial gains, there has not been strong evidence of generalization of effects to: (a) other peers; (b) other settings (e.g. the classroom and playground); and, (c) over time (Berler, Gross, & Drabman, 1982; Hughes & Sullivan, 1988; Schneider, 1992). It may be that the lack of involvement of school personnel in the design and delivery of the social skills programs detracts from their commitment to actions that are necessary to produce generalization (Rose, 1982).
School-based, Class-Focussed
A number of authors (e.g. Furman et al., 1989; Hawkins & Weis, 1985; Patterson, Capaldi, & Bank, 1991; Rose, 1982; Zigler, Taussig, & Black, 1992) have proposed an ecological or systems perspective to understand the factors that affect the healthy social development of children. Children’s development of prosocial behaviors not only involves their acquisition of cognitive and behavior skills to succeed in interpersonal situations, but also sufficient opportunities to practice these skills in a reinforcing environment. Such an perspective would suggest that social skills intervention should be integrated into the classroom curriculum and routines, with the teacher acting as the primary change agent. Advantages of a school-based, class-focused social skills program include:
(a) classrooms are a setting in which most children spend a considerable proportion of their day (Weissberg et al., 1989);
(b) it avoids stigma involved in removing individual children with maladjustment from the class;
(c) there is a greater likelihood of the development of lasting peer relationships through the involvement of natural groupings of children ( Rose 1982);
(d) there is opportunity for the program consultant to work with teachers on effective classroom management strategies; and,
(e) it may lessen the severity of behavior problems in some children, prevent the development of behavior problems in others; and, promote social competence in all (Weissberg et al., 1989; Rose, 1982)
School-based, class-focused interventions have been used to increase the prosocial behaviors of children in early childhood settings (Spivak & Shure, 1974). Supervisor training in a collaborative team approach for teachers to develop classwide strategies resulted in increased peer interaction of preschoolers with disabilities that generalized across settings (Hundert & Hopkins, 1992). Strategies of teaching social problems solving skills to classes of children have been used with positive results in both elementary schools and in middle schools (Battistish, Solomon, Watson, Solomon, & Schaps, 1989; Elias et al., 1986).
A multi-element approach was used in inviting all schools in Norway to participate in a nationwide campaign against bully/victim problems (Olweus, 1991). The program consisted of written and videotape information for educators and parents describing ways of dealing with and preventing bully/victim problems. Students completed a short inventory, and the findings compared to nationwide results, were provided to schools. The intervention was associated with a 50% reduction in student report of being bullied or bullying others, a reduction in student self-report of antisocial behaviors and an increase in student satisfaction with school life up to 20 months later (Olweus, 1991).
In each of these studies, teachers applied an intervention to promote the healthy social development of entire classes of students. Although teachers were key change agents, they received considerable consultation and in some cases (e.g., Battistich, Soloman, Watson, Soloman, & Schaps, 1989) extensive training. The success of school-based, class-focussed interventions may dependent on the availability of these types of teacher support to ensure the fidelity of the intervention.