Previous research in the area of social skills of children and adolescents has resulted in confusion over the number and name of empirically derived dimensions. While much work has been done to derive empirically based taxonomies of child and adolescent problem behaviors, such is not the case for positive social behaviors. The present study conducted an extensive review, analysis, and synthesis of over two decades of factor analytic research on child and adolescent social skills to derive an empirically based taxonomy. Results suggest five dimensions that occurred in over one third of the studies: Peer Relations, Self-Management, Academic, Cooperation, and Assertion. The most common social skills associated with these dimensions are presented. It is advised that clinicians and researchers begin employing this taxonomy to: (a) provide a nomenclature by which to refer to the five positive social skill patterns, (b) identify dimensions on which children or adolescents may have deficits, (c) design interventions to increase the occurrence of these skills, all of which have been empirically related to important social outcomes, (d) measure the effects of interventions, and (e) aid in theory development.

The use of a student self-monitoring and self-rating/teacher matching strategy to assist generalization of social skills use and decrease off-task behavior of five inner-city at-risk middle school students was investigated. A multiple-baseline design was used to assess the effects of the intervention in up to six different class settings. Results indicated that the self-monitoring and self-rating/teacher matching intervention led to an increase in correct social skills use and a decrease in off-task behaviors with all five students. These data add to the existing literature, suggesting self-monitoring with self-rating/teacher matching is an effective procedure to promote generalization of behavior. Implications for research and practice are discussed.

Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI) / Atypical symptoms, multiple co-morbidities and a lack of public awareness make it difficult for older adults to know when to seek help for sepsis. Diagnosis delays contribute to older adults’ higher sepsis mortality rates. This research describes patients’ and caregivers’ experiences with the symptom appraisal process, self-management strategies, provider-nurse-patient interactions, and barriers when seeking sepsis care. Convenience and purposive stratified sampling were utilized on two data sources. A nurse-patient and nurse-family caregivers were interviewed. Online stories by older adult patient survivors or family members from the Faces of Sepsis ™ Sepsis Alliance website were analyzed. Emergent themes were identified using qualitative descriptive methods. Listlessness and fatigue were most bothersome symptoms for the nurse-family caregivers. Fever, pain and low blood pressure were most common complaints, followed by breathing difficulty, mental status changes and weakness. Patients expressed “excruciating pain” with abdominal and soft tissue sources of infection, and with post-operative sepsis. Concern was expressed that self-management strategies and medications create barriers by masking typical sepsis signs. Health care providers’ interpersonal interactions, lack of awareness of sepsis symptoms and guidelines, complacency towards older adults, and denial by patients were barriers. Further barriers were staff inexperience, delays, care omissions, and tension between health care providers, patients and caregivers—with emerging advocacy by patients and family. In conclusion, providers should assess previous self-management strategies when evaluating symptoms. At primary care visits or hospital discharge, older patients with risk factors need anticipatory guidance for sepsis symptoms and possible emergent infections--specifically patients with pre-existing risk factors such as urinary tract infections, pneumonia, or operative events. Public and professional education are needed to overcome a lack of urgency and understanding of symptoms for diagnosis, treatment and guideline adherence for inpatients and outpatient clinics. Further research on subjective sepsis symptoms may improve patient-clinician communications when evaluating sepsis in older adults.

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English speaking skills and the ability to collaborate with others are essential in our global society. Students need to be provided with the knowledge to actively participate in society and develop the ability to use different strategies to support their communication. However, speaking anxiety and not knowing how to cope with speaking anxiety could pose a problem for language learners, affecting their academic achievement. This quantitative study investigated students’ perceptions of speaking anxiety and working in groups or pairs in the foreign English classroom. A questionnaire was used and answered by secondary school students, attending their last year at two different schools. The study identified which strategies students use to cope with speaking anxiety. It was found that the majority of the participants experienced working collaboratively had positive outcomes on their experienced speaking anxiety and over a half of the language learner’s believed working in groups made them speak and participate more during English lessons. Fear of negative evaluation showed being the lowest source for experienced speaking anxiety while the most anxiety-provoking situation was having to speak publicly in class. In addition, the study showed that actively encourage oneself by taking risks in the language classroom was the most common used strategy to cope with speaking anxiety in the language classroom. Moreover, a third of the participants expressed they did not know any strategy to use to cope with their speaking anxiety.

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While self-determination researchers emphasize the importance of pursuing internally motivated goals for self-regulation, cybernetic theorists instead highlight the structural features of goal systems and the manner in which such structural features should facilitate controlled behavior in daily life. However, it was our intuition that a consideration of both these literatures might best explain self-regulatory processes in daily life. Along these lines, we conducted two studies in which we measured the degree to which a person's goals are organized in hierarchical manner with respect to their intrinsic versus extrinsic properties. In Study 1, we found that individuals with hierarchical goal structures were less likely to experience increased motivation to quit following frustrating events. Consistent with this pattern, in Study 2 we found that negative feedback concerning goal progress adversely affected only those without hierarchical goal structures. Implications of these findings for perspectives on self-regulation are discussed, as well as potential new directions for testing cybernetic concepts within human functioning.

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