Social Skills Interventions for Preschoolers with or at Risk for Emotional and Behavioral Disorders: A Qualitative Review, Meta-analysis, and Single Case Research Evaluation

Abstract

The development of social competence is pivotal in young children. As children enter early childhood education settings, they need more social skills to deal with new relationships with teachers and peers. However, research suggests 10-20% of preschoolers are diagnosed with emotional and behavioral disorders. Early onset of problem behaviors can place children at high risks of developing chronical disorders later on. Children with or at risk of emotional and behavioral problems are characterized as lacking social skills. Social skills interventions are commonly used to remedy children’s social skills deficits. A quality indicator review and a meta-analysis were conducted on 33 single case studies on social skills interventions for preschoolers to examine the design quality and evidence in the literature. Furthermore, a single case study was conducted to examine the effect of peer-mediated social skills intervention for preschoolers with social withdrawal. The review found social skills interventions had enough evidence to support social skills interventions as effective for preschoolers with or at risk of emotional and behavioral problems and overall the social skills interventions had a large effect on preschoolers’ social behaviors. The single case study also suggested the intervention was effective in improving children’s social interactions for preschoolers with social withdrawal. These findings implicated social skills interventions can be implemented in classroom settings to improve preschoolers’ social behaviors at a very young age and prevent them from developing further problems.