Social Problem - Solving Skills in Children with Conduct Disorders

The current thesis examines coping strategies in children diagnosed with conduct disorder (CD). Social problem-solving skills are considered to be one of the key social skills. The assumption is that children with CD have worse social problem-solving skills compared to children without diagnosed CD. The aim of the study is not only answering the hypothesis, but also describing component skills and comparing with contemporary doctrins. A group of childrem with diagnosed CD (n=15) and group without diagnosed CD (n=15) is examined by Thematic Apperception Test (Murray,1971). Data were scored by Personal Problem-Solving System (PPSS-R) (Ronan, 2008). Results of the comparison of two groups suggest that children with diagnosed CD have deficits in their social problem-solving skills. Four aspects of social competence were assessed. Children with CD reached worse results in all component scores: the cognitive processing of problem, the emotive processing of problem, the ability to find and propose solutions of the problem and the ability to master effectively social problems. Both groups reached the best results in cognitive processing of the problem. The group of children with CD reached the worse results in emotive processing of the problem. The group of children without CD reached the worse results in proposing..