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Children’s Social Skills Training: A Meta-Analysis

  • Chapter
Children’s Peer Relations: Issues in Assessment and Intervention

Abstract

Social skills training (SST) programs for children have been inspired by convincing evidence that childhood social competence is related to psychological adjustment in later years. It has not been clearly established, however, that interventions aimed at increasing childhood competence can improve the outcome for the children involved. Nevertheless, the number and variety of social skills training programs emerging in both the professional literature and commercial market attest to the appeal of this form of therapy. As is the case for most other forms of therapy, little data are available with regard to the relative effectiveness of the various training approaches or the child characteristics that may be associated with successful intervention. Several review articles on social skills training have focused on a given intervention modality (e.g., Combs & Slaby, 1977; Urbain & Kendall, 1980) or target population (e.g., Conger & Keane, 1981; Gresham, 1981). All have concluded that despite conflicting results and methodological problems, there is empirical evidence that provides some support for the positive impact of social skills training.

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Authors
  1. Barry H. Schneider
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  2. Barbara M. Byrne
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Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Child Study Center, School of Psychology, University of Ottawa, K1N 6N5, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada

    Barry H. Schneider  & Jane E. Ledingham  & 

  2. Department of Psychology, University of Waterloo, N2L 3G1, Waterloo, Ontario, Canada

    Kenneth H. Rubin

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Schneider, B.H., Byrne, B.M. (1985). Children’s Social Skills Training: A Meta-Analysis. In: Schneider, B.H., Rubin, K.H., Ledingham, J.E. (eds) Children’s Peer Relations: Issues in Assessment and Intervention. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4684-6325-5_11

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4684-6325-5_11

  • Publisher Name: Springer, New York, NY

  • Print ISBN: 978-1-4684-6327-9

  • Online ISBN: 978-1-4684-6325-5

  • eBook Packages: Springer Book Archive

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