Background
Peer relationships improve for children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) in clinic‐based social skills groups but rarely generalize to real world contexts. This study compares child ...outcomes of two social skills interventions conducted in schools with children in Kindergarten through fifth grade.
Method
Children with ASD were randomized to one of two interventions that varied on group composition (mixed typical and ASD vs. all ASD or social difficulties) and intervention approach (didactic SKILLS based vs. activity‐based ENGAGE groups). Interventions were implemented at school for 8 weeks (16 sessions) with an 8‐week follow‐up. Innovative measures of peer nomination and playground peer engagement, as well as teacher reports of child behavior problems and teacher–child relationship were analyzed for 137 children with ASD across four sites.
Results
On the primary outcome of social network connections from the peer nomination measure, there was no main effect of treatment, but there were moderator effects. Children with low teacher–child closeness or high conflict improved more in their social connections if they received the SKILLS intervention, whereas children with higher teacher–child closeness improved more if they received the ENGAGE intervention. Only two secondary outcome measures yielded significant effects of treatment. Children in the SKILLS groups increased peer engagement and decreased isolation during recess. Child behavior problems and teacher–child closeness moderated peer engagement such that children with higher behavior problems and lower closeness benefitted more from SKILLS groups.
Conclusions
These findings suggest that social skills groups conducted at school can affect both peer engagement during recess as well as peer acceptability. Child characteristics and teacher–child relationship prior to intervention yield important information on who might benefit from a specific social skills intervention.
Social initiative and behavioral control represent two major dimensions of children's social competence. Cultural norms and values with respect to these dimensions may affect the exhibition, meaning, ...and development of specific social behaviors such as sociability, shyness-inhibition, cooperation-compliance, and aggression-defiance, as well as the quality and function of social relationships. The culturally guided social interaction processes including evaluations and responses likely serve as an important mediator of cultural influence on children's social behaviors, relationships, and developmental patterns. In this article, we review research on children's social functioning and peer relationships in different cultures from an integrative contextual-developmental perspective. We also review research on the implications of the macro-level social and cultural changes that are happening in many societies for socialization and development of social competence.
Over the first few months of 2020, the schooling sector shifted to distance education as governments moved to bring the virus, COVID-19, under control. Education sectors rapidly developed online ...environments. In this milieu teachers have made swift changes to accommodate their students' diverse range of learning needs. In this article, we draw on a qualitative study in Australia to identify key challenges and approaches for fostering school connectedness when students with special educational needs are suddenly required to be educated at distance. A heuristic to define school connectedness is supported that involves connecting with supportive adults; a sense of belonging; positive peer relationships; engagement with learning, and the experience of a positive online climate. Findings from this case study signal that, despite the efforts of educators, students who have special educational needs can slip between the cracks and are at great risk of losing connection both academically and emotionally. There were challenges with students who did not engage in online learning at all. Although practitioners in the study worked with parents to provide the structures for curricula to be addressed, teachers working at distance could enhance school connectedness through fostering teacher and student, and student and student relationships.
Peers carry potential in enhancing students' self-assessment development, but few studies have explored how peer scaffolding is enacted in the process. This qualitative study explores peer assessment ...effects on the self-assessment process of 11 first-year undergraduates and the factors limiting peer influence. Drawing on the data from students' journals, follow-up interviews, observations of in-class formative peer assessment activities and teacher interviews, we ascertained that peers could aid the self-assessment process by enriching student understanding of quality, refining subjective judgement and deepening self-reflection. Yet, peer influence could be reduced by distrust, tensions in feedback communication, competition and lack of readiness for peer learning. Implications for effective use of peers in supporting self-assessment development are discussed.
Compelling evidence demonstrates that peer influence is a pervasive force during adolescence, one that shapes adaptive and maladaptive attitudes and behaviors. This literature review focuses on ...factors that make adolescence a period of special vulnerability to peer influence. Herein, we advance the Influence‐Compatibility Model, which integrates converging views about early adolescence as a period of increased conformity with evidence that peer influence functions to increase affiliate similarity. Together, these developmental forces smooth the establishment of friendships and integration into the peer group, promote interpersonal and intragroup compatibility, and eliminate differences that might result in social exclusion.
This article presents a short-term longitudinal study examining bidirectional associations between academic achievement and positive peer regard among Asian American and Latinx adolescents. ...Specifically, our investigation distinguished between positive peer regard within and across different ethnic groups in a diverse school setting. Three hundred and thirty-five middle school students (52.8% girls; 65% Asian American, 35% Latinx; assessment at the first time point Mage = 12.27 years, SD = 0.71) were followed across two consecutive school years. Participants completed a peer-nomination inventory assessing multiple dimensions of positive peer regard (i.e., reciprocal friendship, social acceptance, and respect), and grades were obtained from school records. Academic achievement was predictive of prospective positive peer regard received from same-ethnic peers only for Asian American adolescents. In contrast, academic achievement predicted prospective positive peer regard received from cross-ethnic peers only for Latinx adolescents. These results suggest that academic achievement was linked to social gains with peers from different ethnic backgrounds for Asian American and Latinx students. The findings underscore the importance of disentangling the sources of positive peer regard in multiethnic school environments.
Public Significance StatementThe present investigation provides evidence that academic achievement is a predictor of same-ethnic positive peer regard for Asian American adolescents and cross-ethnic positive peer regard for Latinx adolescents. It also highlights the critical role that academic success plays in fostering positive peer relationships across different ethnic groups in a diverse school setting.
Background
This study examines the social relationships of elementary school children with high‐functioning autism, focusing on how gender relates to social preferences and acceptance, social ...connections, reciprocal friendships, and rejection.
Method
Peer nomination data were analyzed for girls with and without ASD (n = 50) and boys with and without ASD (n = 50). Girls and boys with ASD were matched by age, gender, and IQ. Each child with ASD was matched by age and gender to a typically developing classmate.
Results
Consistent with typically developing populations, children with ASD preferred, were accepted by, and primarily socialized with same‐gender friends. With fewer nominations and social relationships, girls and boys with ASD appear more socially similar to each other than to the same‐gender control group. Additionally, girls and boys with ASD showed higher rates of social exclusion than their typically developing peers. However, boys with ASD were more overtly socially excluded compared to girls with ASD, who seemed to be overlooked, rather than rejected.
Conclusions
Our data suggest a number of interesting findings in the social relationships of children with ASD in schools. Like typically developing populations, children with ASD identify with their own gender when socializing and choosing friends. But given the social differences between genders, it is likely that girls with ASD are experiencing social challenges that are different from boys with ASD. Therefore, gender is an important environmental factor to consider when planning social skills interventions at school.
This study investigates the role of character strengths in peer relationships among early adolescents. A sample of students (N = 339;
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age = 12.84 years, 53.1% female) nominated friends in the ...classroom and completed assessments of character strengths, the desirability and importance of character strengths in a friend, and friendship quality. Results indicate that the character strengths of honesty, humor, kindness, and fairness were most desirable and important in a friend. Perspective, love, kindness, social intelligence, teamwork, leadership, and humor were associated with higher peer acceptance. Dyadic analyses of mutual best friends suggested that a number of character strengths were also positively related to friend-rated friendship quality. Overall, the results demonstrate the relevance of character strengths for positive peer relationships in adolescents.
Background
Peer problems have emerged as important predictors of Non‐Suicidal Self‐Injury (NSSI) development during adolescence. However, the possibility that adolescents who engage in NSSI may, in ...turn, be at increased risk for experiencing difficulties with their peers has rarely been examined. This study investigated the reciprocal associations between peer problems (e.g. peer victimization, friendship stress and loneliness) and NSSI throughout adolescence, distinguishing between‐ and within‐person effects.
Method
Participants were 866 adolescents (54.5% females; Mage = 13.12 years, SD = 0.78), who took part in six waves of data collection. Adolescents completed self‐report measures of NSSI, friendship stress and loneliness and they took part in a peer nomination procedure to assess peer victimization. Random Intercept Cross‐Lagged Panel Models (RI‐CLPMs) were used to estimate within‐person cross‐lagged effects between each peer problem and NSSI from Grade 7 to 12.
Results
After accounting for between‐person associations between peer problems and NSSI, results indicated that higher‐than‐usual levels of NSSI predicted higher‐than‐usual levels of adolescents’ own friendship stress, loneliness and peer victimization at the subsequent time point. Yet, sensitivity analyses revealed that most of these effects were strongly attenuated and explained by within‐person fluctuations in depressive symptoms. No within‐person cross‐lagged effects from peer problems to NSSI were found.
Conclusions
Findings highlight that the associations between peer problems (i.e. friendship stress, loneliness) and NSSI may be largely explained by shared underlying factors; yet, some evidence also suggests that NSSI engagement may increase adolescents’ risk to experience difficulties in the relationships with their peers, in part via increases in depressive symptoms.
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