Research shows that students with healthy social and emotional development are more successful in the workforce and experience greater lifetime well-being. When schools fully integrate social, emotional, and academic development into K-6 education, academic performance improves, students are more engaged in school, and—as a result—they are more likely to graduate high school and attend and graduate from college. In this symposium, we will present two interventions developed in the field of socio-emotional competencies, as well as researches that reinforce the association between socio-emotional and academic functioning, from preschool to 6 th grade of schooling. Thus, the first communication will present a program ( “O Crescer do Ler e do Ser” (The growth of reading and being) developed to promote socioemotional skills in preschool education and results that illustrate associations between socioemotional indicators (emotional knowledge and peer acceptance) and emerging literacy (phonological and print awareness). In the second and third communication, data presented corroborate the association between socio-emotional competencies and academic competence in 2nd and 5th-year students, respectively. The last communication will present “PONTES” (Bridges), a socio-emotional learning program aimed at 5th grade students, with the goal of promoting socio-emotional skills, as well as sharing the preliminary results derived from its implementation. In each of the communications, implications for intervention in educational contexts for research in the field of socio-emotional adjustment and academic success will be highlighted and shared.

Diana Alves

University of Porto. Portugal

Diana Alves is Assistant Professor at the Faculty of Psychology and Education Sciences of the University of Porto (FPCE UP, Psychology Department), where she teaches the courses of Child and Adolescent Psychopathology, Learning Disabilities, Clinical Assessment of Children and Adolescents and Educational Psychological Counselling . She is a board certified psychologist in Clinical and Educational Psychology by the OPP She is also a clinical psychologist at the Service of Psychological Intervention for Children and Adolescents (FPCEUP), where she coordinates the Specialized Unit of Learning Difficulties. She has been a consultant in several interventions implemented in educational contexts aiming to promote the socio-emotional competence of children in school age.. In the last 20 years, she has been dedicated to the study of learning of reading and writing and socioemotional competence in children and adolescents, as well as developing and testing a triadical model of Learning Disabilities intervention. She conducts research in the field of developmental psychology, as well as academic, social and emotional competence in children, having published both papers and book chapters. In terms of outreach, she has presented dozens of trainings and workshops for teachers and parents on promotion of socioemotional adjustment and academic success. As a supervisor for seven Clinical and Health Psychology master’s theses, she has guided work in the field of mental health with a focus on promotion and remediation. Actually, she collaborate as a researcher in one Erasmus+_KA3_2020(ProWSI-PBS-ECE-623489-EPP-1-2020-1-EL-EPPKA3-PI-POLICY). Promoting Teachers Wellbeing through Positive Behaviour Support in Early Childhood Education is a policy experimentation project aiming to develop evidence-based policies and practices to enhance the teaching profession and elevate teachers’ careers and capacities in Early Childhood Education and Care (ECEC) settings.