Carlen Henington

The Role of Relational Aggression in Identifying Aggressive Boys and Girls.

Abstract Peer perceptions of relational and overt aggression and peer evaluations of social competencies were obtained for 461 boys and 443 girls in second and third grades. In contrast to Crick and Grotpeter (1995) , boys obtained higher relational and overt aggression scores than girls, and the relation between both types of aggression and peer evaluations were similar for boys and girls. When controlling for levels of overt aggression, relational aggression made a statistically significant but small contribution to the prediction of both peer-evaluated competencies and teacher ratings of aggression in boys and girls. Analyses treating relational and overt aggression as categorical variables revealed gender differences in the prevalence and corresponding sociometric status of aggressive subtypes. When peer-rated relational aggression status is not considered, 60% of aggressive girls, compared to 7% of aggressive boys, are not identified as aggressive. High levels of overt aggression were more likely to result in peer rejection for girls than for boys. In a subsample of 112 children, peer-rated relational aggression contributed more to the discrimination of teacher-identified aggressive and nonaggressive girls, whereas peer-rated overt aggression contributed more to the discrimination of teacher-identified aggressive and nonaggressive boys.

The Effects of Training Parents in Functional Behavior Assessment on Problem Identification, Problem Analysis, and Intervention Design:

In this study, parents were trained in four sessions to identify problems, conduct a functional assessment, and design an appropriate intervention based on the function of the problem behavior. First, parents were trained to operationally define problem behaviors, given examples of consequences, and discussed the functions of behavior. Second, parents were given examples of antecedents and discussed replacement behaviors. Third, procedures to increase appropriate behaviors were discussed. Fourth, procedures to decrease inappropriate behaviors were discussed. Prior to the first session and after each session, parents watched a videotaped vignette of a child exhibiting a behavior problem and completed a Problem Identification Questionnaire, Problem Analysis Questionnaire, and Intervention Design Questionnaire. A repeated-measures ANOVA was used to test for significant differences on each of the dependent variables. Results indicated that parents scores on each of the measures improved significantly. Limitations, future research ideas, and implications for school psychologists and other professionals are discussed.

Peer Monitoring of Learning Behaviour

Summary Peer monitoring of process learning behaviours in school classrooms is defined and noted to have been under‐researched and under‐utilised. The existing literature is reviewed, with reference to organisational parameters associated with successful implementation. A case study of reciprocal class‐wide peer monitoring with a difficult class of 6 year olds is reported. Evaluation involved pre‐post observations of the on‐task behaviour of four low‐ability target children and patterns of teacher interaction with the whole class. Teacher time spent with the target children decreased markedly and teacher interactions became more balanced. The target children increased observed on‐task behaviour from 45 per cent to 85 per cent. Implications for replication and extension are outlined.