Social Networks of Children with Developmental Language Disorder in Inclusive Preschool Programs

• In Event: 1-190 - The Role of Peers in Learning across Distinct Life Stages

Integrative Statement

Developmental language disorder (DLD) is defined as unexplained developmental language impairment or primary language impairment (Bishop, 2016). This study is aimed to: 1) determine how children’s play network was associated with their DLD status and that of their peers; 2) determine the extent to which children with DLD were isolates; and 3) examine the extent to which social competence mediated the relations between DLD status and children’s play network and isolation status.

Language skills are crucial for engaging in positive social interactions with peers. Research suggests that children with DLD appear to want to interact with their peers but face difficulties accessing and staying in interactions (Craig & Washington, 1993; Fujiki, Brinton, Morgan, & Hart, 1999). They are frequently left out of play, have few friends in the classroom (Fujiki, Brinton, & Todd, 1996), and are more likely to be bullied by their peers (Redmond, 2011). Additionally, children with DLD may lack social competence to interact appropriately with others (Brinton & Fujiki, 2005; Craig & Washington, 1993; Marton, Abramoff, & Rosenzweig, 2005). However, the intricate relationships between peer interaction, social competence, and students’ DLD status have not been fully explored.

Participants were 124 children with DLD, 53 children with other disabilities, and 247 typically developing children (Mage = 52.42 months, SD = 6.27) from 56 ECSE inclusive classrooms, which were designed to provide young children with disabilities early and positive experiences with typical peers. Children with disabilities were identified based on the presence of the individualized education program (IEP). Among them, children with DLD were identified if they scored one SD below the mean on the Comprehensive Evaluation of Language Fundamentals-Preschool – Second Edition (CELF-P2, Wiig, Secord, & Semel, 2004). To assess children’s peer social network, teachers reported the extent to which every pair of children play with each other in a typical school day over the past three months (0 = never, 4 = always). Social competence was rated by classroom teachers via the Descriptive Pragmatics Profile (DPP; Wiig et al., 2004).

Results of social network analysis (Table 1) showed that children with DLD were associated with smaller social networks than typically developing peers and that children tended to interact with peers with the same DLD status. Multilevel models (Table 2) showed that children with DLD were 10.7 times more likely to be isolated than typically developing children. The associations between DLD status and play interactions and that between DLD status and isolations were partially mediated by the effects of social competence. Presuming that a child’s peer social network serves a key mechanism for linguistic and social-emotional development, the present study makes a unique contribution to the literature by showing robust correlations between early childhood DLD and peer social networks, which are above and beyond the effect of social competence.

Authors

• Laura Justice, The Ohio State University
  Presenting Author

• Jing Chen, The Ohio State University
  Non-Presenting Author

• Anna Rhoad-Drogalis, The Ohio State University
  Non-Presenting Author

• Tzu-Jung Lin, Ohio State University
  Non-Presenting Author

• Brook Sawyer, Lehigh University
  Non-Presenting Author