<p>Various aspects of elementary school children's behavior problems were investigated in four studies. In Study I, teachers’ perceived low control over the classroom situation and a custodial teacher orientation were associated with teachers' (n = 86) preferences for authoritarian strategies (e.g., firm commands) in handling externalizing child behavior problems. Further, perceived high control and a humanistic teacher orientation were associated with non-authoritarian strategies (e.g., reasoning with students). In Study II, the aim was to investigate prospectively teacher-child interactions and teacher-child perceptions of the relationship between children with externalizing (n=26) and internalizing (n=25) behavior problems and unproblematic children (n=44) in the first grade. Children with behavior problems had a higher frequency of negative teacher relationships than unproblematic children. Observed conflictual children-teacher interactions contributed to negative teacher relationships independent of problem status. The moderating effects of social competence were small. In Study III, the principal aim was to investigate whether the children’s social competence, relationships with teachers and behavior with peers functioned as protective or exacerbating factors regarding the adaptation of children with behavior problems. Children with externalizing and internalizing behavior problems, in comparison with unproblematic children, were lower in social competence, school achievement and peer acceptance in sixth grade. There were moderating and independent effects of social competence and teacher and peer relationships on outcomes, but these were mainly restricted to those children with internalizing problems. The primary aim of Study IV was to investigate the social and school adjustment of six-grade children experiencing feelings of loneliness and low peer acceptance. Totally, 808 children participated, and 323 of these children had been followed from grade 1 to grade 6. The results indicated that loneliness was most strongly predicted by early internalizing problems, whereas poor acceptance was predicted by early externalizing problems and poor social competence. Associations between loneliness and low peer acceptance and other adjustment difficulties were also observed. In conclusion, children with behavior problems risk negative relationships as well as other adjustment problems. Early interventions are important in strengthening the protective factors.</p>

Research (Sartain et al., 2006) indicates that engagement demands a more thoughtful way to address the everyday realities of organisational life. The current research endeavours to elucidate the relationship between emotional intelligence and work engagement amongst leaders in a financial service organisation undergoing change.

Various aspects of elementary school children's behavior problems were investigated in four studies. In Study I, teachers’ perceived low control over the classroom situation and a custodial teacher orientation were associated with teachers' (n = 86) preferences for authoritarian strategies (e.g., firm commands) in handling externalizing child behavior problems. Further, perceived high control and a humanistic teacher orientation were associated with non-authoritarian strategies (e.g., reasoning with students). In Study II, the aim was to investigate prospectively teacher-child interactions and teacher-child perceptions of the relationship between children with externalizing (n=26) and internalizing (n=25) behavior problems and unproblematic children (n=44) in the first grade. Children with behavior problems had a higher frequency of negative teacher relationships than unproblematic children. Observed conflictual children-teacher interactions contributed to negative teacher relationships independent of problem status. The moderating effects of social competence were small. In Study III, the principal aim was to investigate whether the children’s social competence, relationships with teachers and behavior with peers functioned as protective or exacerbating factors regarding the adaptation of children with behavior problems. Children with externalizing and internalizing behavior problems, in comparison with unproblematic children, were lower in social competence, school achievement and peer acceptance in sixth grade. There were moderating and independent effects of social competence and teacher and peer relationships on outcomes, but these were mainly restricted to those children with internalizing problems. The primary aim of Study IV was to investigate the social and school adjustment of six-grade children experiencing feelings of loneliness and low peer acceptance. Totally, 808 children participated, and 323 of these children had been followed from grade 1 to grade 6. The results indicated that loneliness was most strongly predicted by early internalizing problems, whereas poor acceptance was predicted by early externalizing problems and poor social competence. Associations between loneliness and low peer acceptance and other adjustment difficulties were also observed. In conclusion, children with behavior problems risk negative relationships as well as other adjustment problems. Early interventions are important in strengthening the protective factors.

The goal of this study was to examine the contributing factors to depression in young adult males with high-functioning autism spectrum disorders (HFASD) and controls. Specifically, this study examined the relationship between recalled relational peer victimization, self-perceived social competence, global self-worth, and symptoms of depression in individuals with HFASD compared to normal controls. Depression is one of the most prevalent comorbid conditions in the HFASD population. Individuals with autism are also subjected to high rates of peer victimization. Given that social abilities are impaired in individuals with autism, it was hypothesized that their experiences with victimization by peers, along with their self-perceived social competence and global self-worth, would help explain levels of depression. It was expected that higher levels of peer victimization, lower levels of self-perceived social competence, and lower levels of global self-worth would explain higher levels of depression. Additionally, it was expected that self-perceived social competence would mediate the effect of peer victimization on depression, global self-worth would mediate the effect of peer victimization on depression, and global self-worth would mediate the effect of self-perceived social competence on depression. Variables were measured with self-report questionnaires. Multiple regression and bootstrapping measures of indirect effects were used to examine the presumed effects. Participants included 40 males, ages 18-26; there were 21 control participants and 19 individuals with HFASDs. Individuals with HFASD had significantly higher levels of depressive symptoms, lower levels of self-perceived social competence, lower levels of global self-worth, and a trend towards higher reports of peer victimization. Multiple regression analyses determined that peer victimization, global self-worth, and self-perceived social competence significantly predicted depressive symptoms in the total sample. Also, peer victimization significantly predicted self-perceived social competence and global self-worth. Additionally, self-perceived social competence significantly predicted global self-worth. Tests of indirect effects indicated that global self-worth mediated the effect of peer victimization on depression, self-perceived competence mediated the effect of peer victimization on depression, and global self-worth mediated the effect of self-perceived competence on depression. As a follow-up, this study also examined select HFASD participants' responses about how they defined bullying, as well as their perceived experiences with victimization. / text

Research (Sartain et al., 2006) indicates that engagement demands a more thoughtful way to address the everyday realities of organisational life. The current research endeavours to elucidate the relationship between emotional intelligence and work engagement amongst leaders in a financial service organisation undergoing change.

Due to the immense challenges faced by young children who exhibit emotion regulation problems, prevention programs have been designed to train teachers on strategies useful for improving classroom behavior. The current study examines the effects of a prevention program implemented in a blended Head Start/daycare setting and evaluates the outcomes of the training on children’s cognitive/preliteracy skills, selfregulation, and social competence in the fall and spring following teacher training. The intervention group (Western Kentucky University Child Care Center) and control group (Bryant Way Child Care Center) were part of a blended Head Start/child care preschool program. Children’s self-regulation, social competence, and cognitive/preliteracy skills were assessed in the Fall and Spring of the school year. Children in the intervention group exhibited better cognitive/preliteracy skills as shown by results on Woodcock- Johnson subtests. Teacher ratings on the ERC showed that girls improved in teacher reported self-regulation, the control group received higher scores on teacher rated lability than did the intervention group, and boys were rated higher on the lability scale than were girls. In addition, Head Start children were rated higher in emotional lability than were daycare children. Teacher ratings on the SCBE scale indicated that children received higher teacher ratings of social competence in the Spring than in the Fall and girls were rated higher than were boys. Additionally, children received lower internalizing behavior problem ratings in the Fall than in the Spring, Head Start children were rated higher in internalizing behavior problems than children in daycare, and boys in the control group received higher ratings of internalizing problem behaviors than those received by any other group. Furthermore, children in the control group were rated higher than children in the intervention group in externalizing problem behaviors in both Fall and Spring, but neither group showed a significant change in externalizing problem behaviors from Fall to Spring. Self-regulation enables children to inhibit inappropriate emotional outbursts as well as control their reactions to situations. Understanding children’s self-regulation skills is of vast importance to individuals in the field of education as the information provides practitioners the opportunity to improve children’s self-regulation in the preschool years.

The diploma thesis deals with one of the most important parts of the concept of the Czech educational system - with so-called key competencies. It is focused on two key competencies - the personal and social competencies. In the theoretical part, it deals with notions of the personal and social competence in general - it is focused on the meaning of these two competencies and on the individual areas which they contain. In case of the social competence, the thesis focuses mainly on areas of social communication, social skills, social intelligence and so-called pro-social behaviour. In connection with the personal competence, it deals mainly with areas of self-knowledge, self-conception, self-evaluation, self- organization or self-regulation, as well as with the area of psychohygiene. Theoretical information about personal and social competencies is explicitly linked with language teaching. The practical part analyses four chosen French textbooks and evaluates them in terms of their potentiality to develop both competencies. It evaluates whether the chosen textbooks develop personal and social competencies and if so - to which extent.

O presente estudo teve como objetivo examinar a estabilidade e mudança nas práticas educativas maternas e paternas, em particular o uso de práticas indutivas, coercitivas e de não interferência aos 24, 36 e 72 meses de vida da criança. Além disso, investigou-se a relação dessas práticas com a competência social infantil aos 72 meses. Participaram do estudo 24 mães e pais que tinham um único filho e residiam na região metropolitana de Porto Alegre. Quando as crianças completaram 24 meses, os participantes responderam a uma entrevista para a avaliação das práticas educativas. Aos 36 meses de vida das crianças, as famílias foram observadas durante o almoço, quando as práticas educativas também foram investigadas. Por fim, aos 72 meses de vida das crianças, os participantes responderam novamente à entrevista sobre práticas educativas parentais e a uma escala para avaliação da competência social dos filhos. Os resultados corroboraram parcialmente a hipótese inicial de que não haveria estabilidade nas práticas educativas parentais, tendo em vista que estas se constituem em comportamentos parentais específicos usados para orientar determinados comportamentos infantis, passíveis de serem influenciadas pelo nível de desenvolvimento da criança. ANOVAs de medidas repetidas indicaram diferenças quanto às práticas indutivas maternas entre os 24 e 36 meses, bem como entre as práticas de não interferência, entre os 24 e 36 meses e também entre os 36 e 72 meses. Quanto aos pais, as diferenças foram encontradas entre as práticas indutivas aos 24 e 72 meses e entre as práticas de não interferência aos 24 e 36 meses e aos 36 e 72 meses. Quando considerados o nível socioeconômico familiar (NSE) e o sexo da criança como fatores de análise, apenas o NSE esteve relacionado com as práticas indutivas paternas, indicando que pais de NSE mais altos são mais indutivos com seus filhos aos 36 meses. Já a hipótese de que as práticas educativas indutivas estivessem relacionadas à competência social infantil não recebeu apoio, uma vez que apenas as práticas coercitivas e de não interferência maternas apareceram correlacionadas com as dimensões de responsabilidade e autocontrole da criança, respectivamente. Os resultados sugerem que, à medida que a criança apresenta novas habilidades e demandas, surge a necessidade de práticas educativas parentais adequadas às diferentes fases do desenvolvimento infantil. / The present study had as its main objective to examine stability and change in mothers' and fathers' child-rearing practices, in particular the use of inductive, coercive and noninterference practices with children at 24, 36 and 72 months of age. In addition, the relation of such practices with child social competence at 72 months was investigated. 24 mothers and fathers who had an only child and lived in the metropolitan area of Porto Alegre participated in the study. When children were 24 months old, the participants were interviewed about their child-rearing practices. When the children were 36 months, they and their families were observed during lunch time, with a focus on child-rearing practices. Finally, when the children were 72 months, the parents were again interviewed about their child-rearing practices and completed a scale assessing their children's social competence. The results partially confirm the initial hypothesis that there would no be stability in parents' child-rearing practices, given that the methods used by parents to guide their children’s behavior may be influenced by the children's level of development. Repeated measures ANOVAs indicated differences in maternal inductive practices between 24 and 36 months and differences in non-interference practices both between 24 and 36 and 36 and 72 months. Concerning the fathers, differences were found between inductive practices at 24 and 72 months and among non-interference practices at 24 and 36 months and at 36 and 72 months. When taking into account family socioeconomic status (SES) and the child's gender as factors of analysis, the latter had no impact and SES was related only to fathers' inductive practices, indicating that fathers with higher SES were more inductive, but only with their 36-month-old children. On the other hand, the hypothesis that inductive practices were related to child social competence was not supported, since only maternal coercitive and noninterference practices showed to be correlated with the dimensions of child responsibility and self-control, respectively. The results suggest that as developing children show new abilities and demands their parents need to adapt their child-rearing practices to reflect those changes.

The critical role of children’s play in the development of peer relationships, social and communicative skills is reviewed and discussed. The difficulties experienced by a pre-school learner in engaging in peer relationships, communicating successfully in a classroom situation and constructively using play materials was explained. This was done through the use of anecdotal records, checklists, questionnaires, photographic evidence and a semi-structured interview with the learner’s parent. A pre-school play programme, using blocks, dough and puppets (BDP Programme) was devised and used to assess its influence on the acquisition of social and communicative skills by a non-social and non-communicative learner. The study found the BDP Programme to be very successful in assisting this learner to develop peer relationships and communicative skills in the peer group and thus played a critical role in the social development of this learner. / Psychology of Education / M. Ed. (Psychology of Education)

Made available in DSpace on 2016-06-02T20:30:09Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 5815.pdf: 2852962 bytes, checksum: 636b06545e546530d496eb0aa5d73cdc (MD5) Previous issue date: 2014-01-30 / Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais / Currently, there is strong evidence that the promotion of social skills and social competence is crucial to quality of socio-emotional development and prevention of behavior problem from early childhood. The literature shows that both social skills and social competence depend, ultimately, on self-monitoring. However, there is a set of conceptual and methodological challenges associated with the analysis and promotion of self-monitoring, especially with young children. In the present study, it is proposed to; (1) define operationally the term self-monitoring, (2) analyze its relationship with social skills and behavior problem, and (3) develop a self-monitoring resource to evaluate and analyze the effects of an intervention that combined specific procedures to promote it. This thesis is composed of four chapters. In chapter I, a behavioral definition of indicators of self-monitoring is proposed based on literature review, considering the fields of Social Skills and of Behavior Analysis. In Chapter II, the stages of construction of Illustrative Resource of Self-monitoring (RIAM) for assessment (RIAM-A) and for intervention (RIAM - I) in preschoolers are described. In Chapter III, a study is presented with the objective of verifying similarities and differences in behavioral indicators of self-monitoring evaluated by RIAM-A (self-description, description and choice of consequence) of 53 children, between five and six years old, divided into three groups (socially competent, with deficits in social skills, and internalizing behavior problem and externalizing or mixed behavior problem). The results indicated that children with social skills were better than children with behavior problem in selfmonitoring tasks, further verifying positive correlation between self-monitoring scores and social skills scores, and a negative correlation between self-monitoring scores and internalizing behavior problem. Finally, Chapter IV examined the effects of an intervention involving contingency analysis training and exposure to social contingencies in structured situations to promote self-monitoring and its impact on social skills, social competence and reducing behavior problems in preschool evaluated by RIAM-A and who presented difficulties in self-monitoring tasks. Individual sessions were carried out, which included: presentation of interactive situations in the form of drawing, discussion about the appropriateness or relevance of each response and probable consequences, followed by participation in structured presentation of the demand for social skills discussed previously. The results showed that, relative to a comparison group, children who took part in intervention had improved social skills, self-monitoring and social competence, but not reduction of behavior problem. The set of studies suggests the feasibility of research on self-monitoring in early childhood, proposing indicators, resources and procedures for assessment and intervention strategies for self-monitoring. The implications of the research are discussed in terms of theoretical, methodological, empirical and practical contributions. / Atualmente, há fortes evidências de que a promoção de habilidades sociais e de competências social é crucial para o desenvolvimento socioemocional de qualidade e prevenção de comportamentos-problema desde a infância. A literatura mostra que tanto as habilidades sociais como a competência social dependem, em ultima instância, da automonitoria. No entanto, há um conjunto de desafios conceituais e metodológicos associados à análise e promoção de automonitoria, especialmente em crianças pequenas. Propõe-se, no presente estudo, delimitar operacionalmente o conceito de automonitoria, analisar sua relação com habilidades sociais e com comportamentos-problema, desenvolver um recurso para avaliar automonitoria e analisar os efeitos de uma intervenção que combinou procedimentos específicos para promovê-la. A presente tese de doutorado está composta por quatro capítulos. O Capítulo I propõe, com base em revisão de literatura, uma definição comportamental de indicadores de automonitoria, considerando as perspectivas das Habilidades Sociais e da Análise do Comportamento. No Capítulo II, são descritas as etapas de construção do Recurso Ilustrativo de Automonitoria (RIAM) para avaliação (RIAM-A) e para intervenção (RIAM-I) em préescolares. No Capítulo III, apresenta-se um estudo com o objetivo verificar semelhanças e diferenças nos indicadores comportamentais de automonitoria avaliados pelo RIAM-A (autodescrição, descrição e escolha de consequência) de 53 crianças, entre cinco e seis anos, divididas em três grupos (socialmente competentes; com déficits em habilidades sociais e com comportamentos-problema internalizantes e com comportamentosproblema externalizantes ou mistos). Os resultados indicaram que crianças com habilidades sociais apresentaram melhores desempenhos em tarefas relacionadas à automonitoria do que crianças com comportamentos-problema, verificando-se, ainda, correlação positiva entre escores de automonitoria e de habilidades sociais e, negativa entre escores de automonitoria e de comportamento-problema internalizantes. Por fim, o Capítulo IV buscou analisar os efeitos de uma intervenção envolvendo treino de análise de contingências e exposição a contingências sociais em situações estruturadas para promoção de automonitoria e seu impacto sobre habilidades sociais, competência social e redução de comportamentos-problema em pré-escolares avaliados pelo RIAM-A que apresentavam dificuldade em tarefas de automonitoria. Foram realizadas sessões individuais compostas por: apresentação das situações interativas em forma de desenho, discussão sobre a adequação ou pertinência de cada resposta e prováveis consequências, seguida de participação em situações estruturadas com demanda para apresentação da habilidade social antes discutida. Os resultados mostraram que, em relação a um grupo de comparação, crianças participantes da intervenção obtiveram melhora em habilidades sociais, automonitoria e competência social, mas não redução de comportamentosproblema. O conjunto de estudos sugere a viabilidade de investigações sobre automonitoria na infância, propondo indicadores, recursos e procedimentos para sua avaliação e estratégias para intervenção. Discutem-se as implicações das investigações em termos de contribuições teóricas, metodológicas, empíricas e práticas.