This study investigated the associations that three behavioural patterns, peer acceptance and rejection, friendships, and self-depreciating attributions have with children’s reports of loneliness at school. Data were collected from 214 children who were 11- to 12-years-old. Classmates provided peer perceptions of prosocial, aggressive, and withdrawn behaviour and rated sociometric status. Children themselves provided data on mutual friendships, feelings of loneliness, and attributions for social success ond failure. Regression analyses indicated that withdrawn behaviour and lack of friends were significant predictors of loneliness. Rejected children were significantly more withdrawn, less cooperative, and lonelier than were other groups of children. Internal, stable attributions for social failure were associated with more loneliness at school. However, no significant associations were found between reports of loneliness and attribution patterns for social success. Intervention for socially rejected children may be specifically warranted when the child shows withdrawn behaviour.

Some issues related to behaviour problems in preschool children are examined. Topics include prevalence and significance of early behaviour problems, problems in assessment of behaviour problems in very young children, and currently used classification systems and their relevance to very young children.The case for a developmental perspective will also be considered in conjunction with some recent methods of classifying child problems such as DC: 0-3 (Zero to Three: National Center for Infants, Toddlers, and Families, 1997) and with more behaviourally oriented guidelines. Finally, relationships that develop over time ore examined with respect to risk and protection, the case for prevention and early identification, and a brief review of interventions for preschool children. In spite of the difficulty in identifying significant problem behaviour in very young children, it is argued that it is important to intervene early in order to prevent more serious problems later in life.

A three-phase study examined preprimary grade repetition in Western Australian schools. The purpose was to identify factors that influence teacher recommendations to repeat and to investigate outcomes of repeating. Focus group discussions with 24 preprimary teachers in the first phase identified three categories of factors: child, home, and school. Child factors that teachers considered important for coping in Year I were language, motor, and social skills. In the second phase of the study, 54 children were assessed on these three skills using the Early Screening Profiles (Harrison, 1990). A control group of“competent”Year Is was compared with children repeating preprimary and with Year Is considered “at risk” of not coping.The control group performed significantly better on all three skills than the other two groups, confirming thot these skills are accurately assessed in teachers’judgements of readiness for Year 1. The third phase of the study consisted of a posttest of the at-risk Year Is and the children repeating preprimary. The posttest late in the academic year did not find any significant differences between the language, motor, and social development of the two groups.

Oppositional defiant and conduct disorder are two of the most common childhood adjustment problems. Given the serious short-and long-term implications of these disorders, much research has focused on the assessment and treatment of these behaviour problems. However, most of the large body of literature on these problems has relied upon maternal responses to either forced-choice questions or directed questioning, limiting the qualitative input that the parent may contribute.The present study investigated the qualitative perceptions that mothers held of their child, with and without problems. Significant differences were found between mothers of clinical and nonclinical children. Many of the results supported past quantitative research, but there are new insights into the tendency of clinical parents not only to make more negative and critical comments about their child but also to qualify any positive remarks they made about the child.

The Rasch measurement principles espoused in the Bond & Fox (2001) volume reviewed elsewhere in this journal are routinely adopted by Australia's major educational measurement projects (e.g., by Australian Council for Educational Research, Educational Testing Centre). Yet those ideas are yet to have their full impact in smaller research projects in educational and developmental psychology. A number of quantitative analytical techniques used in our disciplines are able to help us to draw conclusions like “Betty is better than or more developed than Bob”, but Rasch measurement is uniquely placed to help us conclude that “Betty is this much better than or more developed than Bob.” In educational and psychological statistics, we regularly presume the “interval” nature of our research data, but only the Rasch model sets about to ensure that the units of measurement maintain their unit value across the whole achievement or development scale.