Small-Group and Intensive Intervention for Social-Emotional Intelligence

Abstract

Social-emotional intelligence (SEI) can be described as the basic skills an individual has to recognize and manage emotions appropriately (Hoffman, 2009). The development of these skills in children can be very influential in developing appropriate behaviors, which in turn can support academic achievement (Elias & Weissberg, 2000). The current study implemented a small-group SEI intervention to four preschool students. In addition, a one-on-one intervention was introduced in a staggered fashion across participants over the course of ten weeks to examine the effects of the one-on-one intervention on teacher perceptions of social skills and measures of early academic skills. Results suggest that teacher perceptions of participants' appropriate behavior and emotional expression did not significantly improve after the one-on-one intervention was introduced. Early academic skills gradually improved over the ten week intervention period.