Improving Verbal-Social Communication Skills of Preschool Students

The purpose of the research was to study the verbal-social skills of preschoolers from low-socioeconomic status (SES) backgrounds. The goals were to determine whether teaching strategies of conflict negotiation and initiation and maintenance of conversations through group and free-play activities would lead to increased verbal-social skills among low SES preschool children. A total of 30 participants from two Head Start classrooms participated in the study. One classroom served as the experimental group, and the other classroom as the control group. Social skill strategies were taught to the experimental group, composed of 4-year olds of low SES, over a 2-month period. The researcher incorporated group and free-play activities targeting specific verbal-social skills into the intervention classroom’s activities. The control classroom received no intervention. Both groups participated in pre- and post-testing. The research demonstrated that children from low SES backgrounds, particularly those in child...