Young Children's Interactions Research Articles

Descriptive analysis of parent–child interactions in young children with or at risk for developmental delay

AbstractChildren with developmental delay (DD) are at risk for behavior problems, but little is known about natural contingencies of reinforcement that these children experience. The present study used descriptive analysis (antecedent–behavior–consequence observations) to study parent–child interactions of fourty‐seven, 2–3 year‐old children with or at risk for DD. Child adaptive and inappropriate behavior as well as their antecedents and consequences were observed across four conditions (free play, parent‐directed play, mealtimes, parental distraction). When parents were engaged in another task (distraction), child appropriate behavior occurred less frequently than in the other conditions, and child inappropriate behavior occurred 63% of the time. A lack of parental attention and no activity were the most frequent antecedents for inappropriate behavior. Potential positive reinforcers appeared as consequences of inappropriate child behavior 77% of the time. These findings have implications for the development and prevention of serious behavior disorders. Copyright © 2004 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

The Social Validity of Interventions for Promoting Preschool Children's Peer Interactions

AbstractThis analogue study investigated the social validity of classroom interventions designed to promote peer interactions in young children. The influences of child characteristics and diagnostic labels on social validity ratings were examined, as were the relationships among three components of social validity. Forty-two preschool teachers completed a 15-item social validity scale that yielded scores pertaining to intervention goals, procedures and effects. Participants rated three types of intervention, which varied according to individuals targeted and intensity of programming procedures, with reference to one of three case descriptions of children with social interaction problems. Half the participants were provided with the child's diagnostic label. Results indicated that social validity is affected by interactions between intervention methods and child characteristics. The inclusion of diagnostic labels in the case descriptions had no effect on social validity ratings. Strong positive relationships were found among the components of social validity. Implications for the use of empirically validated interventions in inclusive preschools are discussed.

Early school competence: the roles of sex-segregated play and effortful control.

The purpose of this research was to examine the role that young children's same-sex peer interactions play in influencing early school competence. The authors also examined the degree to which effortful control (EC) moderated these relations. The same-sex play preferences of 98 young children (50 boys and 48 girls; mean age = 54.77 months) were observed during the fall semester. At the end of the fall semester, one set of teachers reported on children's EC, and at the end of the following springsemester, another set reported on children's school competence (social, academic, and perceptual-motor). Results revealed that EC moderated the relations of children's same-sex play to their school competence. These patterns differed for boys and girls such that same-sex play was positively related to school outcomes for boys high in EC and for girls low in EC.

Contextual determinants of mothers' interventions in young children's peer interactions.

Contextual determinants of mothers' interventions in young children's peer interactions.

Contextual determinants of mothers' interventions in young children's peer interactions.

In this study, the role of context in mothers' interventions in their preschool children's peer relationship problems was investigated. Event theme (aggression, peer rebuff, or initiating play), the child's role in the event (actor or target), the child's age and sex, and the mother's emotional reaction were examined as predictors of the extent to which mothers (N = 71) said they would discuss peer relationships, encourage peer interaction, and use power assertion in response to a series of videotaped vignettes depicting common peer relationship problems. Mothers suggested using more discussion in aggressive situations and more encouragement in initiating play situations. Mothers said they would use more power assertion when the child was the actor (i.e., provocateur), rather than the target, in an aggressive situation. Findings are discussed in terms of (a) the importance of considering context in understanding how mothers intervene in their children's peer relationships and (b) the need to examine moderators of cross-contextual consistency in mothers' interventions.

An Intervention Hierarchy for Promoting Young Children's Peer Interactions in Natural Environments

Young children's peer-related social competence has been viewed as a critical developmental competency during early childhood. Nevertheless, a number of young children, particularly young children who have disabilities or who are at risk for disabilities, have peer interaction difficulties. During the last several decades, various intervention strategies for improving young children's peer interactions have been developed, refined, and evaluated in early childhood programs. This article presents a conceptual framework based on an intervention hierarchy for assisting interventionists in deciding how to promote the peer interactions of young children with peer-related social competence difficulties in natural environments. We discuss making developmentally appropriate and inclusive early childhood programs the foundation for improved peer interactions. Several illustrative and empirically validated intervention strategies for these children are presented and recommendations are made regarding flexible employment of the hierarchy to individualize peer interaction interventions.

Young children's collaborative interactions in a multimedia computer environment

This paper reports on a study that investigated the collaborative interaction patterns exhibited by 5-year-old preprimary children in an educational computer environment. A case study method was used in one preprimary centre in metropolitan Perth, Western Australia, to examine the patterns of collaborative interaction among young children whilst engaged, in dyads, with the computer within a naturalistic classroom environment. A total of 243 interactions were identified and classified into 16 interaction patterns. Factors facilitating and inhibiting collaborative interaction were identified as: developmental appropriateness of the software; preexisting computer competency and attitude towards computer; mutual friendship between collaborators; children's social goals; appropriate structure of enjoyable learning environment; mutual understanding of turn-taking system; and nonisolated physical settings. In effect, this study shows that early childhood educators would be in a better position to integrate the computer into their classroom and to promote positive prosocial interaction among children whilst engaged with the computer, if it were to be afforded the same status as other traditional early childhood learning materials and activities.

The stability and consequences of young children's same-sex peer interactions.

The stability and consequences of young children's same-sex peer interactions.

The stability and consequences of young children's same-sex peer interactions.

This article addresses whether young children's play-partner choices are stable over time and how these choices influence behavior. Sixty-one children (28 boys and 33 girls; mean age = 53 months) were observed over 6 months, and type of play behavior and sex of play partners were recorded. Children's partner preferences were highly sex differentiated and stable over time, especially when larger aggregates of data were used. Two types of consequences were identified: a binary effect that influenced differences between the sexes and a social dosage effect that influenced variations within the sexes. The binary effect reflected a pattern in which the more both girls and boys played with same-sex partners, the more their behavior became sex differentiated. The social dosage effect reflected a pattern in which variations in levels of same-sex play in the fall contributed significantly to variations in the spring above initial levels of the target behaviors.

Understanding Others, and Individual Differences in Friendship Interactions in Young Children

Links between individual differences in 4‐year‐olds’ social understanding, language abilities, temperament, behavioral adjustment and family background and the quality of their interaction with a close friend were investigated. 64 pairs of friends were filmed playing together on two occasions, and each child tested on a battery of assessments of theory of mind, emotion understanding and language. Teachers and mothers reported on children’s adjustment and temperament respectively. There were marked differences in children’s interactions with their friends; the sociocognitive abilities and behavioral characteristics of both child and friend contributed significantly to cooperative shared pretend, to low frequency of conflict and to successful communication between friends; behavioral adjustment and family background also contributed independently to friendship quality. The similarity between friends in behavioral adjustment and sociolinguistic skills was notable.

Preschool Deaf Children's Use of Signed Language during Writing Events

This research examined young deaf children's social interaction during free-choice writing time in their preschool classroom. The study examined the ways in which five deaf children used signed language as they wrote. Results of the study indicated that the children used both signed language and nonverbal expression to engage in representational, directive, interactional, personal, and heuristic use of language to support their writing endeavors. The study raises the question of whether nonverbal expression might also be salient among emergent writers who are not deaf.

Correlates of young children's interactions with classmates with disabilities

Although including children with developmental disabilities in preschool classes has become increasingly common, little is known about how experiences in an inclusive classroom affect young children's development. In Study 1, 36 typically developing children (mean age = 55.2 months) attending an inclusive, university-based early childhood program were interviewed about their knowledge of and attitudes toward children with disabilities. Parents answered questions about: (a) expectations for their children's prosocial behaviors and (b) their own beliefs about interacting with children with disabilities. Parents' beliefs and children's attitudes toward children with disabilities were positively related to the frequency of children's actual contacts with classmates with disabilities during free play time. In Study 2, the beliefs and behaviors of 20 children from an inclusive university-based early childhood program and 18 children from an inclusive community-based program were compared. There was no difference between the two programs in the amount of contact typically developing children had with classmates with disabilities.

Collaborative Interactions in Young Children

This paper reports on a study which was conducted in eight classes across two year levels (Years 2 and 4) in four schools in suburban Brisbane. The study was designed to determine if there were differences between the collaborative interactions of the children who were trained to work together (Trained group) and those who were told to work together but were not trained (Untrained group). The study found that the children in the Trained groups were consistently more collaborative and helpful to each other as they tried to involve each other in the learning task. They provided more assistance to each other, even when this help was not explicitly requested. Moreover, the children in the Trained groups used more inclusive language (e.g., frequent use of ‘we’ or ‘us’) than their peers in the Untrained groups and these behaviours were exhibited by the children in the Trained groups across the two year levels. In effect, the study showed that it is possible to train lower and middle primary school children to assist and support each other's learning.

Young Children's Interactions With Babies In Group Care

Many young children who are in group care have difficulty relating to others in positive ways. Caregivers have concerns about the facilitation of positive, pro-social outcomes in interactions involving infants and toddlers. It is important for program planning to provide data that will chart the evolving developmental changes in children's abilities to interact positively with others. Studies have shown that infants who have regular contact with other infants tend to be more social than those with limited opportunities to interact. Infants tend to interact more positively when the interaction is guided by a sensitive caregiver. Research also has suggested that empathetic, pro-social behaviors emerge only during the second year of life. Lorenz (1943) postulated that infant and toddler girls' response to dolls was much like adult females' response to infants and, perhaps, was due to innate mechanisms. Others suggest that social expectations, reinforcements, and demands of gender-role behaviors are responsible for the increasing divergence between girls' and boys' responses to infants during the preschool years. As a means to further explore this issue, this project was designed as a 5-year longitudinal study to investigate young children's social interactions with a new baby introduced into a group care environment.

Home and family influences on motivations for reading

This article reviews the growing literature on home and family influences on children's motivations for reading. Children whose early encounters with literacy are enjoyable are more likely to develop a predisposition to read frequently and broadly in subsequent years. Young children's self-initiated interactions with print at home are important behavioral indexes of emerging motivations for reading. Shared storybook reading plays an important role in promoting reading motivations; when the socioemotional climate is positive, children are more interested in reading and more likely to view it as enjoyable. The beliefs held by children's parents about the purposes of reading and how children learn to read relate to children's motivations for reading. Parents who believe that reading is a source of entertainment have children with more positive views about reading than do parents who emphasize the skills aspect of reading development. These findings have important implications for offering guidance to parents and for the development of family literacy intervention programs.

Linking parental perceptions to interactions in young children with autism.

This study examines the relation of parental perceptions and observed parent-child interactive behaviors. Samples observed included normally developing children, children with autism, and children with mental retardation who were equivalent on mental age. Parental perceptions of children's temperament and parental feelings of parenting stress were examined. Results indicated that parental perceptions of autistic children's behavior were more often linked to actual child and parental behaviors than in the comparison samples. Parents who reported their autistic children as more difficult in temperamental style had children who were less engaged during a social game with the parent and less responsive in interaction with an experimenter. Parents who reported greater stress had autistic children who were less responsive in social interactions with others.

Investigating verbal interactions when primary chidren use computers

Abstract This paper is based upon some early results of a research project currently underway at Edith Cowan University to investigate the nature of young children's interactions centred on and around the use of new technologies for learning. The research focused on children working in dyads on a single computer‐based language task; the software used was chosen to facilitate children's talk. This paper reports a number of findings, including the difficulties of predicting the quality of children's interactions at the computer; the likely significance of a wide range of factors that influence children's interactions; and, the lack of patterns in children's interactions over time. From the analysis of the data, two categorisations are given which might be useful to guide further research into the nature of children's interactions using the computer. The first categorisation is a checklist of verbal interaction types, and the second, a checklist for metacognitive components in children's interactions.

Out-of-Class Versus In-Class Service Delivery in Language Intervention

The interactions of young children and their speech-language pathologist during out-of-class and in-class language intervention were compared for 15 children with disabilities attending a mainstreamed childcare center. Children were pair matched and randomly assigned to either in-class or out-of-class special services. After 3 months, treatment sessions were videotaped. The results indicated that some, but not all, aspects of both speech-language pathologists' and children's interactions differed during in-class versus out-of-class treatment sessions. During out-of-class sessions, speech-language pathologists took more turns than during in-class sessions. Children complied more with requests during out-of-class sessions and responded less to requests during in-class sessions. The results suggest that because in-class and out-of-class models have differential effects only on some aspects of clinician and child behavior, selection of service delivery models must be determined by a myriad of factors. Furthermore, these findings suggest that, in the absence of more conclusive data, it is premature to equate a particular mode of service delivery with a higher degree of treatment efficacy.

Gender Differences in Young Children's Interactions When Learning Fundamental Motor Skills

The purpose of the study was to examine how young children interact in the context of learning fundamental motor skills. Twenty-nine preschool children were observed during a period of six consecutive months while they were participating in their daily motor skills program. Fieldwork research methodology was used and data were collected using participant observation techniques. During data analysis, emerging patterns were identified and cross-referenced against data collected from other sources (triangulation). Girls were found to interact in a cooperative, caring, and sharing manner. Boys were found to interact in a competitive, individualized, and egocentric manner. A cultural pattern of cooperative interaction among Asian children was found. In addition, both boys and girls tried to maintain their gender style of interaction when dealing with the opposite sex. This study reveals several aspects of the social environment that may need to be considered when teaching motor skills to young children.

Gender comparisons of young children's social interaction in cooperative play activity

Pairs of 5 and 6 year old children working in same gender and mixed gender dyads on two activities were compared for five coded discourse styles. Subjects' interaction strategies during both activities were coded and data were analyzed to assess the role of gender, level of activity interest, and gender composition of the dyad on characteristics of the interaction. The findings support the central hypothesis of the study, that differences in the use of aggravated behavior in interaction style by boys and girls is strongly influenced by the nature of the activity being performed and by the gender of their interacting partner.