Abstract:

The primary goal of schools is to educate students, however, in considering the collaborative role of professionals in achieving this goal, consensus exists that schools can only be effective learning environments if strategies are implemented that build and maintain appropriate social behavior (Horner, Crone & Stiller, 2001). The purpose of this pilot study was to investigate an intervention for at-risk elementary school students who did not respond sufficiently to a universal school-wide social skills program. The manualized social skills counseling intervention was implemented for 2 years, and sought to create and maintain appropriate student relating and problem solving, and to improve academic performance. The effectiveness of the intervention was determined using measures of behavior, grades, standardized tests, and need for special services collected pre and post intervention for individual students, the intervention group and a comparison group. Results suggest substantial positive intervention outcomes across multiple variables for individual students and between groups. Implications of this field based study are considered in terms of applied school practice.

Keywords:

At-risk students, social skills intervention, manualized group counseling, academic improvement, prosocial skills, violence prevention, bullying.