Abstract
This study investigated the effects of an interpersonal problem solving skills training program for young children with learning disabilities (LD) to increase their skills to solve interpersonal problems. The study hypothesized that subjects with LD who participated in an interpersonal problem solving skills training program would demonstrate more friendliness and assertiveness on initial strategies, goals and additional strategies, than subjects with LD who participated in reading sessions. It was also hypothesized that the subjects with LD who participated in the interpersonal problem solving skills training program would demonstrate higher scores on teachers' and parents' ratings of social skills, than subjects with LD who participated in reading sessions.Subjects included 24 students with learning disabilities between the ages of 6 to 8 years. There were 17 male and 7 female subjects. Subjects were screened to establish a need for the interpersonal problem solving skills training intervention. Twelve subjects (experimental group) participated in the 10 week intervention. The components of the model were twenty lessons from "Developing Social Skills with Language" (Vaughn, Levine, & Ridley, 1990) and two social skills strategies. One strategy taught students how to solve an interpersonal problem, the other strategy taught students how to accept negative feedback. Puppets demonstrated interpersonal problem solving techniques throughout the program. Twelve subjects (contact control group) participated in reading sessions. Students listened to stories then acted them out with puppets.Three measures were utilized as the pretest and posttest. Teachers completed the social skills component of the Social Skills Rating System (Gresham & Elliott, 1990). Parents completed the social skills component of the Social Skills Rating System (Gresham & Elliott, 1990). Students were individually administered the Social Cognition Interview (Oliva, 1990).Data were analyzed using a two-way analysis of variance for repeated measures. Results did not confirm the hypotheses; there were no significant differences between the experimental and the control groups. Replication of the study was suggested with recommendations for changes to be implemented.