Social-cognitive research in children with aggressive behaviour: New perspectives

From a cognitive point of view the way children process the social stimuli from their current environment plays a part in the generation of aggressive behaviour. Initially, studies of social cognition in children with aggressive behaviour were Piagetian in orientation. Some recent models, notably one by Dodge, are based on cognitive theories of information-processing. Studies based on these social information-processing models give a picture of an aggressive child who is not only developmentally retarded, as demonstrated in Piagetian studies, but is also deviant. More specifically, deficits as well as biases have been demonstrated in the child's encoding of social cues, in its interpretation of these cues, and in its generation, evaluation and selection of behavioural responses. These findings may bring about improvements in the cognitive-behavioural treatment of children with aggressive behaviour, the only child-focused therapy that has so far been shown to have any effect.