Effects of Reinforcement on Peer Imitation in a Small Group Play Context

2017 ◽  
Vol 40 (1) ◽  
pp. 69-86 ◽  
Author(s):  
Erin E. Barton ◽  
Jennifer R. Ledford
Keyword(s):  
Social Interactions ◽  
Small Group ◽  
Children With Disabilities ◽  
Pretend Play ◽  
Learning Opportunities ◽  
Contingent Reinforcement ◽  
Schedule Of Reinforcement ◽  
Group Play ◽  
Play Context

Children with disabilities often have deficits in imitation skills, particularly in imitating peers. Imitation is considered a behavioral cusp—which, once learned, allows a child to access additional and previously unavailable learning opportunities. In the current study, researchers examined the efficacy of contingent reinforcement delivered within a small group play context on the unprompted peer imitation (UPI) behaviors of three children with disabilities. UPI behaviors increased when contingent reinforcement was provided, and maintained with a thinned schedule of reinforcement. However, pretend play and social interactions did not increase concurrently with peer imitation.

Coaching Paraprofessionals to Promote Engagement and Social Interactions During Small Group Activities

2017 ◽  
Vol 26 (4) ◽  
pp. 410-432 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jennifer R. Ledford ◽  
Kathleen N. Zimmerman ◽  
Kate T. Chazin ◽  
Natasha M. Patel ◽  
Vivian A. Morales ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Social Interactions ◽  
Small Group ◽  
Group Activities ◽  
Small Group Activities

Caregiving in quarantine: Humor styles, reframing, and psychological well-being among parents of children with disabilities

2021 ◽  
pp. 026540752110435
Author(s):  
Heidi L. Fritz
Keyword(s):  
Psychological Distress ◽  
Social Interactions ◽  
Children With Disabilities ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Family Satisfaction ◽  
The United States ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Humor Styles ◽  
Psychological Well Being ◽  
Over Time

Prior research links adaptive humor styles (affiliative and self-enhancing) with enhanced psychological well-being and maladaptive humor styles (aggressive and self-defeating) with worse psychological well-being, primarily through humor styles’ influence on individuals’ social interactions and efforts to positively reframe stressors. The present study examined the unique relation of each humor style with psychological well-being with a focus on understanding mechanisms of adjustment under highly stressful conditions. Ninety-nine parents of children with disabilities were surveyed at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic in the United States in March 2020, and 79 parents completed follow-up surveys in July 2020. As predicted, at T1, self-enhancing humor was associated with less psychological distress and greater family satisfaction, self-defeating humor was associated with greater distress, and aggressive humor was associated with lower family satisfaction. Moreover, affiliative humor predicted decreased psychological distress over time, whereas self-defeating humor predicted increased psychological distress and decreased family satisfaction over time. Relations were largely mediated by caregiver positive reappraisal, family efforts to reframe daily disability-related challenges, and negative social interactions. Future research should further examine the influence of caregiver humor styles on family dynamics, family reframing norms, and caregiving efficacy.

Toys and Materials as Setting Events on the Social Interaction of Preschool Children

2001 ◽  
Vol 25 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 49-66
Author(s):  
Mark Carter ◽  
Catherine A. O’Gorman‐Hughes
Keyword(s):  
Preschool Children ◽  
Social Interaction ◽  
Social Interactions ◽  
Children With Disabilities ◽  
Observational Research ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Future Studies ◽  
Setting Events ◽  
Research Designs ◽  
Apply Research

This review examined the effects of toys and materials as setting events on social interactions of preschool children. A total of 11 studies were examined and the findings suggested an association with particular types of toys and materials and increases in social interaction. There are, however, several methodological weaknesses that need to be addressed in future studies. In particular, future studies need to make more extensive use of experimental rather than observational research designs, provide functional descriptions of extant social skills of participants, apply research designs that allow idiosyncratic responses to intervention to be examined and consider the effects of manipulation of effects of toys and materials in relation to age. With regard to studies involving children with special needs, a number of features of existing research, including small group sizes, unusual ratios of children with disabilities compared to typically developing children and atypical play areas, limit conclusions that can be drawn from the present data. Future research will need to address these issues and examine more typical preschool settings in order to clarify the role of toys and materials in encouraging positive social interactions between young children with disabilities and their regular peers.

Serious games

Pragmatics ◽  
2010 ◽  
Vol 20 (4) ◽  
pp. 523-555 ◽  
Author(s):  
Inmaculada M. García-Sánchez
Keyword(s):  
Peer Group ◽  
Pretend Play ◽  
Rapid Change ◽  
Daily Basis ◽  
Immigrant Children ◽  
Cultural Continuity ◽  
Sociocultural Environment ◽  
Linguistic Practices ◽  
The Rich ◽  
Group Play

This paper examines the situated ways in which Moroccan immigrant children in Spain create imagined, alternative life worlds and explore possible forms of identification through an investigation of these children’s hybrid linguistic practices in the midst of play. Drawing on Bakhtin’s (1981, 1986) notions of heteroglossia and hybridity, the analysis focuses on the meanings of codeswitching practices that a group of Moroccan immigrant girls deploy in pretend-play sequences involving dolls to construct female identities; identities that they treat as desirable in the context of Spanish idealizations of femininity, but that are considered transgressional by adults in Moroccan diaspora communities in Spain. Neighborhood peer group play affords Moroccan immigrant girls’ transformations and engagement in subversive tactics, in that these activities take place outside the scrutiny of parents and other adults. The rich verbal and sociocultural environment of Moroccan immigrant children’s peer groups provide us with an excellent window to investigate peer language socialization processes in relation to how immigrant children negotiate, transform, and subvert in the midst of play the different, and often incongruous, socio-cultural and linguistic expectations and constraints that they encounter on a daily basis. Use of Moroccan Arabic and Spanish in this pretend play, in particular, results in a heteroglossic polyphony of voices imbued with moral tensions (Bahktin 1981, 1986). This analysis highlights the importance of these hybrid linguistic practices in immigrant girls’ explorations of alternative processes of gendered identification in multilingual, culturally-syncretic environments. Through surreptitious pretend-play, Moroccan immigrant girls explore imagined transgressional possible identities and moral worlds. In this sense, this research also underscores the implications of children’s language use and language choice in pretend-play for larger processes of cultural continuity and transformation in transnational, diasporic communities undergoing rapid change.

Inclusion of Preschoolers with Profound Disabilities: An Analysis of Children's Interactions

1993 ◽  
Vol 18 (1) ◽  
pp. 28-35 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mary Frances Hanline
Keyword(s):  
Young Children ◽  
Social Interactions ◽  
Children With Disabilities ◽  
Peer Interactions ◽  
Full Inclusion ◽  
Profound Disabilities ◽  
Indoor And Outdoor

The purpose of this study was to explore the nature of spontaneous peer interactions in a full-inclusion preschool. Three children with profound disabilities were observed for a total of 480 min each in indoor and outdoor supervised play. Three children without disabilities were observed under the same conditions for comparison purposes. Results of the study showed variation in the behavior of the children with disabilities, but also showed that the children with disabilities had many opportunities to participate in peer social interactions and engaged in interactions comparable in length to those of their peers without disabilities. Findings also indicate that particular attention may need to be paid to the encouragement of initiating interactions and to helping young children without disabilities understand and respond to the idiosyncratic behaviors of peers with profound disabilities.

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