Social reciprocity in handicapped and nonhandicapped children in a dyadic play situation

• Published in: Journal of applied developmental psychology 1986-10, Vol.7 (4), p.383-390
• Main Authors: Quay, Lorene C., Jarrett, Olga S.
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• ISSN: 0193-3973; 1873-7900
• DOI: 10.1016/0193-3973(86)90007-9

Social reciprocity behavior was compared for handicapped and nonhandicapped preschool children when they were in play situations with both handicapped and nonhandicapped partners. In a counterbalanced design, handicapped and nonhandicapped children were paired with both handicapped and nonhandicapped play partners, and the social initiation and response sequences of the dyads were observed. Types of initiation observed were friendly statements, friendly questions, mildly negative advances, and demanding statements. Friendly, ignoring, and negative responses were observed to these initiations. Handicapped and nonhandicapped children did not differ on overall number of initiations. However, they did differ on the types of initiation they made. Handicapped children asked fewer friendly questions and engaged in more demanding initiations than expected. Both groups made more initiations when paired with handicapped partners than when paired with nonhandicapped partners, but the groups did not differ on the types of initiation made to handicapped and nonhandicapped partners. The handicapped children made more ignoring and negative responses to friendly initiations than the nonhandicapped children. Behaving similarly, both groups tended to respond negatively to negative and demanding initiations.