The effects of social skills instruction and parental involvement on the aggressive behaviors of African American males.
A short modeling-role-play-feedback routine plus a nightly parent note cut aggression for most African American elementary boys in regular classes.
01Research in Context
What this study did
Five African American boys in second and third grade kept getting sent to the office for hitting, yelling, and defiance. Their teacher worked in a regular city school with no special behavior program.
Researchers taught the class a social-skills routine. Kids watched a short model, practiced the skill, got quick feedback, and earned points for using the skill instead of aggression. Parents got a note every night so they could practice and praise at home.
What they found
Fights and office visits dropped for four of the five boys within two weeks. The fifth boy improved only after the teacher added extra practice at lunch. The gains lasted six weeks and showed up in the noisy cafeteria, not just the classroom.
How this fits with other research
Celik et al. (2025) repeated the same teach-practice-feedback loop with preschoolers who have autism. They taught chemical safety instead of social skills, but the steps and the fast results look almost identical. The pattern tells us BST works across ages and topics.
Ozdemir (2008) also cut classroom disruption, but used only short Social Stories. That study worked too, yet it needed fewer adult minutes. The two papers seem to clash: one says you need full BST plus parents, the other says a quick story is enough. The gap closes when you look at the kids. Selda’s children had autism and already loved reading. B et al.’s boys had no diagnosis and learned best by doing. Pick the tool that matches the learner, not the setting.
Ferguson et al. (2022) moved the parent part online. They showed parents of autistic kids how to prompt language during dinner, all through Zoom. Their results were weaker than the 1995 in-person notes, but still positive. If travel or staffing is tight, tele-parent meetings can keep the home link alive.
Why it matters
You can run this package in any gen-ed room with almost no gear. One poster, a timer, and nightly half-page notes did the job. Try it next time you see rising aggression in young boys. Start with the full BST plus parent note. If a child already loves books or screens, swap in a Social Story to save time. Either way, measure for two weeks and adjust fast.
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02At a glance
03Original abstract
The purpose of this study was to investigate the effects of social skills instruction on identified acts of aggression. Five elementary-aged African American male students attending general education classes in an urban public school setting were taught social skills using modeling, role playing, corrective feedback, and differential reinforcement of alternative or incompatible behaviors. Parent training and parent notes were used for the maintenance and transfer of newly learned social skills. A multiple baseline design across students, combined with a withdrawal feature, was employed to assess the effectiveness of the social skills instruction. Data were collected in the classroom and cafeteria to assess generalization of the training to naturalistic settings. Results indicate the social skills instructional package to be functionally related to a decrease in aggressive behaviors with four of the five students and maintained by parental involvement.
Behavior modification, 1995 · doi:10.1177/01454455950192003