An investigation of generalization and short term maintenance of small-group social skills/assertiveness training for children within a city intermediate school

Abstract

Social Skills training (SST) is a wider term than Assertiveness Training in its strict sense, but the two terms are sometimes used interchangeably. (Bornstein, Bellack and Hersen, 1977.) Other training "packages" with different names again include some similar components, such as Micro-counselling (as in Ivey and Gluckstern 1974, Bradley 1977); some humanistic-insight groupwork (as in Hunter 1977); some Rational-Emotive groupwork (as in Block 1978); and Structured Learning Training or SLT, (as in Pentz 1980). Assertiveness training involves "all socially acceptable expressions of rights and feeling" (Wolpe and Lazarus, 1966). The training includes ..... "(a) the ability to say no, (b) the ability to ask favours or make requests, (c) the ability to express positive and negative feelings, (d) the ability to initiate, continue, and terminate general conversations," (Lazarus, 1973).