Autistic adolescents need direct, systematic training of social skills since major difficulties in communication, lack of empathy, and various changes during adolescence present major roadblocks to the acquisition of normal peer relationships and increasing independence. A case study approach was utilized to examine treatment effects of a social skills training program implemented with four autistic adolescent boys in a naturalistic setting. Findings based on objective measures and subjective reports indicated that each subject made gains in targeted social skills over the course of treatment. Treatment strategies such as modeling, coaching, roleplaying, one to one instruction, and in vivo procedures were found to be effective teaching techniques. Major benefits and limitations of the study were discussed.

The effectiveness of a social skills training workshop was assessed by comparing the rated competence of participants in an Interpersonal Skills Training Program (a 2-session, 12-hour workshop) to the rated competence of nonparticipants. This comparison was operationalized through a study design of the pre- and posttesting of 12 experimental and 22 control subjects. The assessment instruments used were Spitzberg's Conversational Skills Rating Scale (CSRS) and Curran's Simulated Social Interaction Test (SSIT). Two rating judges were utilized. Results, although modest, are in the expected direction. Measured competence on the CSRS failed to show significant improvement in the rated competence of the experimental group as compared to the rated competence of the control group. However, the SSIT did reveal significant improvement of the rated skill and anxiety of experimental subjects while the control group showed no significant improvement. In addition to assessing the effectiveness of the workshop, this study sought to find a positive correlation of the CSRS instrument to the SSIT instrument. As expected, the CSRS showed a positive correlation to the SSIT.

The Interpersonal Communication Inventory, a self-report instrument for assessing social skills, was given to undergraduate college students to determine its reliability. Following this administration, other small groups of undergraduates were asked to complete an attraction scale, the Interpersonal Communication Inventory, an assertiveness scale, and a sociometric questionnaire. Results confirmed the Inventory as a reliable instrument, but a stepwise multiple linear regression did not support the hypothesis that the Inventory was a useful predictor of sociometric choice. In addition, Pearson product moment correlations between the Inventory and an assertiveness scale did not confirm the prediction that the two instruments would measure behaviors from different response classes. Definite conclusions could not be stated due to lack of validity data for the Inventory and possible confounding variables.

Made available in DSpace on 2014-06-11T19:22:22Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 0 Previous issue date: 2009-01-23Bitstream added on 2014-06-13T19:48:38Z : No. of bitstreams: 1 garnica_krh_me_bauru.pdf: 888593 bytes, checksum: 3a4795b02d6a7d725805bac5c5e54827 (MD5) / A presente pesquisa teve por objetivos: a) descrever, a partir de filmagens, o repertório comportamental das crianças antes da participação em um Treinamento de Habilidades Sociais; b) identificar a frequencia de comportamentos internalizantes e externalizantes de crianças pré-escolares sob o ponto de vista de suas professoras; c) avaliar o comportamento socialmente habilidoso de crianças que frequentam a escola de Educação Infantil por meio de auto-avaliação da criança sobre seu desempenho social e da avaliação da professora sobre o desempenho social da criança, antes e depois do treinamento; d) verificar a eficácia do Sistema Multimídia de habilidades Sociais (SMHS) para crianças em idade pré escolar. Os participantes foram 18 crianças da Escola 1 (Grupo Experimental) e 13 crianças da Escola 2 (Grupo de Espera) com 5 e 6 anos de idade que frequentavam as turmas de Jardim II e Pré e duas professoras das respectivas turmas. Os dados foram coletados através de filmagens, da aplicação da Escola Comportamental Infantil ECI-A2 de Rutter, respondido pelas professoras, avaliação das habilidades sociais através do Sistema Multimídia de habilidades Sociais com auto-avaliação das crianças sobre seus desempenhos sociais e avaliação das professoras sobre os desempenhos sociais das crianças. A Escola 1 (Grupo Experimental), participou de três fases do estudo: primeira avaliação das habilidades sociais Treinamento de Habilidades Sociais (THS) e segunda avaliação de habilidades sociais, após o Treinamento. Já a Escola 2 (Grupo de Espera), participou de quatro fases do estudo: primeira avaliação de habilidades sociais, segunda avaliação de habilidades sociais (antes do Treinamento); Treinamento de Habilidades Sociais (THS) e terceira avaliação de habilidades sociais após o Treinamento. Os principais resultados foram: a) na análise das filmagens as frequencias... / The present research aims: a) describing, from filming, the behavior repertory of children before being part of a social skill training; b) identifying the frequency of inner and outer behaviors of pre scholar children under their teachers' point of view; c) evaluating the behavior socially skilled of children who attend kindergarten by means of self evaluation of children about their social performance and the teacher's evaluation of children about their social performance and after the training; d) verifying the fit of multimedia system for social skill (SMHS) for children in pre scholar age. The participants were eighteen children of the scholl 1 (experimental groups) and thirteen children of the school 2 (awaiting group) of five and six years old who attend the groups of kindergarten 2 and primary and two teachers of the respective groups. Data were collected by filming, by applying the child behavioral skale ECI-A2 of Rutter, responded by the teachers, social skill evaluation through social skill multimedia system with self evaluation of children about their social performance and the same from the teachers about the children. School 1 (experimental group), participated three phasis of the study: first social skill evaluation, social skill training (THS) and second evaluation of social skills, after training. Whereas School 2 (awaiting group), participated four phasis of studying: first social skill evaluation, second social skill evaluation (before training); social skill training (THS) and third social skill evaluation after training. The main results were: a) analyzing the filmings, the frequencies of skilled behavior of children display that, either School 1 or School 2, it was more for boys and less for girls, whereas for non skilled behaviors, boys displayed in School 1 a lower frequency than the girls and only in School 2 a hogher frequency than the girls... (Complete abstract click electronic access below)

Mental-state and emotion understanding are important constructs for successful interpretation of behaviour and interaction with others. While false-belief understanding has been the main focus of investigations into children�s mentalising over the past 30 years, we now have tasks available that allow assessment of a broader range and more advanced set of mentalising skills amongst older age groups of typically developing young people (Baron-Cohen, Jolliffe, Mortimore, & Robertson, 1997a; Baron-Cohen, O�Riordan, Stone, Jones, & Plaisted, 1999; Happé, 1994). A recent trend has seen a shift away from investigating when children attain these skills towards examining individual differences in their performance. This has included consideration of both the factors that contribute to (Carlson & Moses, 2001; Hughes & Dunn, 1997; Meins et al., 2002; Milligan, Astington, & Dack, 2007; Ruffman, Slade, & Crowe, 2002), and the factors that are influenced by (Astington & Jenkins, 2000; Cassidy, Werner, Rourke, Zubernis, & Balaraman, 2003; Diesendruck & Ben-Eliyahu, Repacholi, Slaughter, Pritchard, & Gibbs, 2003) individual differences in mental-state understanding. One of the interesting questions in this area is what are the subsequent benefits or harm that individual differences in mentalising and emotion skills hold for children�s social competence? The current study investigates young people�s growing socioemotional understanding and how it is related to their social abilities, both prosocial and antisocial. The aims were to provide information on the relations amongst advanced mental-state skills, to investigate how these skills were related to emotion understanding, and, further, to investigate how socioemotional skills were related to social competence. The current study also extended the literature by addressing these aims amongst older children. Two studies were conducted, involving children (4- to 7-years) seen on four occasions in a three-year longitudinal study, and adolescents (13- to 17-years) in a cross-sectional study. There were a number of key findings. Individual differences in children�s advanced mental-state understanding are relatively stable across time, and the relations which they show with emotion skills are more consistent when examining tasks that shared skill sets. Language plays an important mediating role in the relation between socioemotional skills, although this influence appears to decrease with age. Mental-state and emotion understanding are both important for children and adolescents� social competence. It seems that greater socioemotional abilities influence prosocial behaviours, and poorer socioemotional abilities influence antisocial behaviours. Overall, the current study provides evidence that socioemotional skills are overlapping but distinct constructs, that they show varied interactions in social settings, and that future investigations of how children come to understand and interact with others will be best served by careful consideration of appropriate measures and by including multiple aspects of children�s social cognition.

Previous research has demonstrated that behavioral skills training (BST) is effective in teaching social skills to individuals with developmental disabilities, but often the skills fail to generalize. One strategy to promote generalization has been the use of in situ training. In an effort to improve upon previous research BST plus in situ training was evaluated to teach greeting skills to adults living in a group home setting. The percentage of correct greeting responses was evaluated in a multiple baseline across participants design. Results showed that BST was only partially effective in teaching greeting skills to the participants. However, In-situ training resulted in a greater increase in correct greeting skills across all participants.

published_or_final_version / Social Work / Master / Master of Social Sciences

published_or_final_version / Social Work / Master / Master of Social Sciences

The purpose of this study has been to describe and analyze how seven Swedish preschool teachers and two special education teachers think and work with children who show a lack of social skills. The study method has been semi-structured interviews with the educators which have been analyzed and sorted under different themes/categories. The theoretical framework used in this study is sociocultural, relational and categorical perspectives. These perspectives have been chosen in order to better understand how teachers see their role in supporting children in need of special support. The environment in the preschool is found to be of great help and the teachers’ approach is of great importance.The research emphasizes the importance of integrating thinking, feeling and behavior. Social skills are an important part of the pre-school assignment. The children have to learn how to¨cooperate and empathize with others. The result of the study shows that children’s skills in playing and taking turns are the biggest issues in the daily activities. The teachers see an important task in helping children achieve social competence and helping children translate their emotions. The special education team assists greatly in the preschool teachers’ work with children in need of special support.

Mental-state and emotion understanding are important constructs for successful interpretation of behaviour and interaction with others. While false-belief understanding has been the main focus of investigations into children�s mentalising over the past 30 years, we now have tasks available that allow assessment of a broader range and more advanced set of mentalising skills amongst older age groups of typically developing young people (Baron-Cohen, Jolliffe, Mortimore, & Robertson, 1997a; Baron-Cohen, O�Riordan, Stone, Jones, & Plaisted, 1999; Happé, 1994). A recent trend has seen a shift away from investigating when children attain these skills towards examining individual differences in their performance. This has included consideration of both the factors that contribute to (Carlson & Moses, 2001; Hughes & Dunn, 1997; Meins et al., 2002; Milligan, Astington, & Dack, 2007; Ruffman, Slade, & Crowe, 2002), and the factors that are influenced by (Astington & Jenkins, 2000; Cassidy, Werner, Rourke, Zubernis, & Balaraman, 2003; Diesendruck & Ben-Eliyahu, Repacholi, Slaughter, Pritchard, & Gibbs, 2003) individual differences in mental-state understanding. One of the interesting questions in this area is what are the subsequent benefits or harm that individual differences in mentalising and emotion skills hold for children�s social competence? The current study investigates young people�s growing socioemotional understanding and how it is related to their social abilities, both prosocial and antisocial. The aims were to provide information on the relations amongst advanced mental-state skills, to investigate how these skills were related to emotion understanding, and, further, to investigate how socioemotional skills were related to social competence. The current study also extended the literature by addressing these aims amongst older children. Two studies were conducted, involving children (4- to 7-years) seen on four occasions in a three-year longitudinal study, and adolescents (13- to 17-years) in a cross-sectional study. There were a number of key findings. Individual differences in children�s advanced mental-state understanding are relatively stable across time, and the relations which they show with emotion skills are more consistent when examining tasks that shared skill sets. Language plays an important mediating role in the relation between socioemotional skills, although this influence appears to decrease with age. Mental-state and emotion understanding are both important for children and adolescents� social competence. It seems that greater socioemotional abilities influence prosocial behaviours, and poorer socioemotional abilities influence antisocial behaviours. Overall, the current study provides evidence that socioemotional skills are overlapping but distinct constructs, that they show varied interactions in social settings, and that future investigations of how children come to understand and interact with others will be best served by careful consideration of appropriate measures and by including multiple aspects of children�s social cognition.