Children with Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD) often demonstrate significant deficiencies in social interaction and social communication skills, so it is critical to understand and develop interventions which directly address these needs. This book explores the core areas of ASD development and related deficits, and introduces a practical program to assess and remediate these social competency issues. This book addresses the primary issues of social development in children with ASD by emphasizing the underlying theoretical and pragmatic considerations. Dr. Cotugno employs concepts and theories of group therapy and cognitive-development and integrates them with skill-based instructional approaches to develop the comprehensive Social Competence Enhancement Program (SCEP). This peer-based, group-focused program is explained in detail, including a step-by-step guide to its implementation and a full range of tasks and activities that can be used by practitioners at each stage of the process. This book will be a valuable resource for teachers, clinicians and all other professionals working with children with ASD who are interested in using group interventions as a means to improve social competency and treat social skills deficits.

This book explores children's social relationships in and out of the classroom. Chapters focus on the growing importance of children's friendships and how these influence social participation and development later on in life. Issues such as peer rejection, bullying and adolescent development are analysed from both psychological and sociological perspectives. The book concludes with a re-examination of cultural concepts of childhood, child development and the nature of children's autonomy.

This book offers a clear and comprehensive overview of the key sociological approaches to the study of social movements. The author argues that each of these approaches makes an important contribution to our understanding of social movements but that none is adequate on its own. In response he argues for a new approach which draws together key insights within the solid foundations of Pierre Bourdieu's social theory of practice.

Making Sense of Social Research Methodology: A Student and Practitioner Centered Approach introduces students to research methods by illuminating the underlying assumptions of social science inquiry. Authors Pengfei Zhao, Karen Ross, Peiwei Li, and Barbara Dennis show how research concepts are often an integral part of everyday life through illustrative common scenarios, like looking for a recipe or going on a job interview. The authors extrapolate from these personal but ubiquitous experiences to further explain concepts, like gathering data or social context, so students develop a deeper understanding of research and its applications outside of the classroom. Students from across the social sciences can take this new understanding into their own research, their professional lives, and their personal lives with a new sense of relevancy and urgency. This text is organized into clusters that center on major topics in social science research. The first cluster introduces concepts that are fundamental to all aspects and steps of the research process. These concepts include relationality, identity, ethics, epistemology, validity, and the sociopolitical context within which research occurs. The second and third clusters focus on data and inference. These clusters engage concretely with steps of the research process, including decisions about designing research, generating data, making inferences. Throughout the chapters, Pause and Reflect open-ended questions provide readers with the space for further inquiry into research concepts and how they apply to life. Research Scenario features in each chapter offer new perspectives on major research topics from leading and emerging voices in methods. Moving from this dialogic perspective to more actionable advice, You and Research features offer students concrete steps for engaging with research. Take your research into the world with Making Sense of Social Research Methodology: A Student and Practitioner Centered Approach.

This accessible, well-judged text provides students with a matchless introduction to generic research skills.

How do people think about the world? How do individuals make sense of their complex social environment? What are the underlying mechanisms that determine our understanding of the social world? Social cognition - the study of the specific cognitive processes that are involved when we think about the social world - attempts to answer these questions. Social cognition is an increasingly important and influential area of social psychology, impacting on areas such as attitude change and person perception. This introductory textbook provides the student with comprehensive coverage of the core topics in the field: how social information is encoded, stored and retrieved from memory; how social knowledge is structured and represented; and what processes are involved when individuals form judgements and make decisions. The overall aim is to highlight the main concepts and how they interrelate, providing the student with an insight into the whole social cognition framework. With this in mind, the first two chapters provide an overview of the sequence of information processing and outline general principles. Subsequent chapters build on these foundations by providing more in-depth discussion of memory, judgemental heuristics, the use of information, hypothesis-testing in social interaction and the interplay of affect and cognition. Social Cognition will be essential reading for students and researchers in psychology, communication studies, and sociology.

Do you struggle to get your head around the application of theory and associated methods of intervention to social work practice? Making sense of theory and its application to social work practice is here to help you with a fresh approach written with the ‘non- theoretician’ in mind. After exploring the expectations and limits of application of theory to practice, Phil Musson sets about describing theories of explanation and their associated methods of intervention in an accessible way. He follows this by looking at theoretically driven approaches and their associated methods of intervention. One generic case study is used throughout, tweaked slightly but maintaining the same service users and issues so you can see how the theory of explanation or approach and the associated method of intervention is applied. You are also able to sharpen up your critical thinking skills as the author invites you to reflect on the theories of explanation and approaches discussed. Making Sense of Theory and its Application to Social Work Practice will be immensely valuable to both social work students and practitioners.

As scientists or clinicians, we all have an implicit theory about how the mind relates to the nervous system, which infuses our research and practice. This theory entails what has been traditionally known as “the mind-body problem.” Intrinsically connected to the question of potentials and constraints of human and conscious artificial life, it still represents an open and highly debated philosophical and empirical question. The common assumption for many cognitive neuropsychologists and neuropsychiatrists is that by looking at the anatomical brain function or malfunction it is possible to predict the behavioral experience of individuals. This view, often called reductionism, has dominated the research trajectories in neuroscience and psychiatry in the past decades.

This book offers a new understanding of innovation in the built environment. The ways meaning of innovation is constructed has important implications for policymakers, project managers, academics and students. Through a longitudinal research study into innovation in firms and projects, the book addresses some key themes, challenges and concerns that practitioners face when managing innovation in the built environment. It examines the key drivers for innovation in the construction, engineering and infrastructure firms and projects. In particular, the questions of how and why innovation becomes recognised and sustained over time are explored. Different theoretical perspectives are considered to explain different aspects of innovation. This includes sensemaking, organisational and individual identity, storytelling and narration. The book has practical implications for how organisational activities become labelled as ‘innovation’ and for what purpose. It shares some lived stories of innovation as mobilised by practising managers. The connectivity between the formal narratives of innovation at the policy level and the lived narratives of innovation articulated by practitioners is explored. Combining the theory with practice, this book presents an insightful view on the implications of innovation in the business world today.

Taking the soap opera as a case study, this book explores the 'parasocial interaction' people engage in with television programmes. It looks at the nature of the 'active viewer' and the role of the text in social psychology. It also investigates the existing theoretical models offered by social psychology and other discourses. This second edition takes into account recent research work and theoretical developments in fields such as narrative psychology, social representation theory and ethnographic work on audiences, and look forward to the developing role of audience research. It will be an essential study for students and lecturers in social psychology and media studies.