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

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.     

Reactivity and unreliability of husbands as participant observers

This study examined the reliability and reactivity of participant observation. Twelve couples engaged in two discussions in a laboratory, one on a conflict topic and one on a consensus topic. For the eight couples in the experimental sequences, a baseline discussion was followed by participant observation in which the husband recorded his wife's use of I while continuing to converse. The four couples in the control sequences conversed without participant observation. Compared to observations made by a trained observer, the husbands were unreliable observers, underestimating their wives' use of I. Participant observation was reactive (P<.01), with more wives decreasing their use of I in the experimental sequences than in the control sequences (p<.094). The topic of discussion did not differentially influence reliability or reactivity.This research was conducted as the first author's independent doctoral research project. We extend gratitude to the Research Council of the University of North Carolina at Greensboro for Grant 0-2-110-218-XXXXX-7548; the Statistical Consulting Center of the University of North Carolina at Greensboro; two anonymous reviewers; and our research assistants, Suzanne Brannon, Ben Hardie, Kathy Lindamood, Amy Mitchem, Regina Pierce, and Elga Wulfert. Portions of this paper were presented at the meeting of the Association for Advancement of Behavior Therapy, Washington, D.C., December 1983.