Effects of Problem-Solving Instruction on Improving Social Skills and Decreasing Behavioral Problems: A Single subject Study on slow-learner students

Acquiring problem-solving skills enables children to explore various solutions for daily challenges، and allow them to make proper decisions to solve them. Children، who lack cognitive interpersonal skills are more aggressive، socially isolated and care less about other people. This condition may result in a poor adjustment at school، and these children demonstrate more aggressive and apprehensive behaviors. Evaluating effectiveness of problem-solving skills on improving social skills and reducing behavioral problems of slow-learner first grade students was the main objective of the present study. This single subject design study with pre and post-testing and follow-up stages was conducted on five male students. Data were gathered by using Gersham & Eliott Social Skill Scale Rating System (Parent and teacher forms) for three stages of pre، post testing and the follow-up. Mothers and teachers of the subjects completed the questionnaires 40 days after the training sessions for follow-up. Four problematic behaviors of these students were observed in the classrooms; behaviors such as aggression، bullying and intimidating، complaining، and arguing with the teacher and other students. These behaviors were observed and documented during the first 10 sessions as the baseline data. Then، the problem-solving program (Shure، 2000) was presented to the subjects in 30 sessions of 50 minutes، three times a week. Data from follow-up stage was gathered through 10 post-training sessions. Descriptive statistics and analysis repeated measure analysis of variance were used to analyze the data. Results show that based on teachers، and parents’ evaluation، this training was successful in enhancing social skills، and reducing behavioral problems. The differences between the means of pre and post test scores were significant. Results concerning problematic behaviors show that the differences among means in all three stages were also significant and the training diminished problematic behaviors. At the end of this article، we discuss the concurrence of our results with other studies، and the importance of problem-solving training at schools.