In recent years, a number of developmental counselling programs have become increasingly popular among counselors and teachers both in Canada and the United States. Programs such as Developing Understanding of Self and Others (D.U.S.O.), the Human Development Program (H.D.P.) and Toward Affective Development (T.A.D.) are designed to promote greater selfawareness, greater self-confidence and better interpersonaI skills among students. In the present paper, the two most widely used elementary school programs, D.U.S.O. and the H.D.P., are examined and compared in terms of their objectives and format. Next, the research on each program is reviewed and finally suggestions for further research are made.
An ongoing area of controversy among educators in Canada and the United States lies in the degree of emphasis which should be placed on the affective or the cognitive aspects of development in schools. While some theorists such as Ausubel (1968) have stressed that the function of the school is to foster intellectual growth, others such as Combs (1962), Miller (1976) and Linskie (1977) have argued that emotional factors strongly influence intellectual performance. Therefore, schools should be concerned with affective growth, particularly with the development of positive self-concepts.
Consistent with this latter perspective, increasing emphasis is being placed on the need for affective education within the schools by a number of psychologists in both Canada and the United States (Blowers and