ENHANCING CHILDREN'S PEER RELATIONS: A COGNITIVE SOCIAL-LEARNING PROCEDURE FOR SOCIAL SKILL TRAINING WITH PRESCHOOL CHILDREN (EARLY CHILDHOOD FRIENDSHIP, SOCIAL-COMPETENCE)

Rejected and neglected children from six preschool classrooms were randomly assigned to either a social skill training condition or to an attention control condition. Children participated in eight out-of-classroom sessions designed to teach them the behavioral skills of asking questions of peers, leading peers, supporting peers and commenting to peers. The activities in each of the sessions focused on achieving one or both of two social goals, initiating and maintaining social interaction with peers and solving peer conflicts. Children in the control condition spent an equivalent amount of time in sessions with the adult coach but the focus of the control sessions was on learning to play with a variety of toys provided. The results of the intervention were assessed through a variety of dependent measures reflecting both process and outcome changes, including teacher and peer ratings, social knowledge interviews, evaluations of skill performance proficiency and monitoring ability, and behavioral observations in the children's classrooms. The effects of intervention were seen most clearly in behavioral observations of children's skill use with peers. Specifically, trained children increased their use of the skills leading and comments. Significant improvements were also seen on trained children's social monitoring ability as relected in percent of relevant peer-directed verbalizations observed during videotaped rehearsal sessions. Trained children did not show the decline in friendliness of social strategy responses during social knowledge interviews exhibited by control group children. Further, gains in social knowledge were associated with gains in classroom skill use which in turn was associated with increased peer acceptance. Results are interpreted in terms of the apparent efficacy of the intervention and the implications for a model of social competence.