Long-term effects of social skills training on depressive symptoms in children

Abstract

The purpose of the present study was to investigate longitudinal effects of classroom-based social skills training (SST) on children's depressive symptoms after they had been promoted. The participants in the study were elementary school third graders at the beginning of the study. A waiting list control design was used, in which the children were assigned either to a social skills training group (n = 114) or a waiting list control group (n = 75) ; the latter group was given identical social skills training after the first group had been trained. The social skills training was conducted class-wide (45 minutes per session), and included 5 components : listening skills, positive words, requesting skills, declining skills, and skills related to teachers. All the children received a point card after training. In addition, after the children were promoted to the fourth grade, their teachers noted components of social skills in the children and conducted short sessions or booster sessions as maintenance procedures. Both groups improved their social skills immediately after the social skills training and were found to have maintained those skills when evaluated 1 year later. Also, at the one-year follow-up, the depressive symptoms in both groups had decreased significantly.