Promoting Peer Interaction Skills

Abstract

This article highlights the importance of peer interactions for pre–school-aged children's social and language development and demonstrates the need for professional development in this area. Learning Language and Loving It™—The Hanen Program® for Early Childhood Educators and Preschool Teachers is a professional development program that is delivered by speech–language pathologists and teaches educators and preschool teachers to use naturalistic environmental arrangements and verbal support strategies to facilitate peer interactions. This article describes the program and summarizes research that indicates that the program effectively improves educators' use of verbal supports for peer interaction. Other outcomes for children in their care included increased interactions with their peers that continued beyond 2 conversational turns. To date, the efficacy of the verbal support strategies used in this in-service program has been investigated only for typically developing children. The program's usefulness in promoting peer interactions with children who have disabilities (e.g., language disorders) is beginning to be explored.