Knowing a child's affiliative feelings about a peer helps us understand child's social behavior toward peers and can predict how a relationship between two children would continue. A picture-drawing task, in which a child draws himself or herself and a peer, is a potentially valid way to measure a child's feelings of affiliation toward the peer.…

Most children first enter social groups of peers in preschool. In this context, children use movement as a social tool, resulting in distinctive proximity patterns in space and synchrony with others over time. However, the social implications of children's movements with peers in space and time are difficult to determine due to the difficulty of…

Autistic children are often reported less socially connected, while recent studies show autistic children experiencing more loneliness in school than allistic (i.e. non-autistic) children, contradicting the traditional view that autistic children lack social motivation. This study aimed to understand individual differences in how social…

New technologies that combine digital sensors with automated processing algorithms are now being deployed to study preschool classrooms. This article provides an overview of these new sensing technologies, focusing on automated speaker classification, the analysis of children's and teachers' speech, and the detection and analysis of their…

Introduction: This study examined the naturally occurring social interactions of adolescents with visual impairments during lunch. Methods: We observed nine middle and high school students with visual impairments during multiple lunch periods (i.e., 44 total observations). We used interval recording (15 s observe, 15 s record) to collect data on…

Children with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) struggle to develop appropriate social skills, which can lead to later social rejection, isolation, and mental health concerns. Educators play an important role in supporting and monitoring social skills development for children with ASD, but the tools used by educators are often tedious, lack suitable…

This paper discusses collaborative research between academics and practitioners to enhance the level of play engagement in nine groups of toddlers in The Netherlands. Researchers and pedagogic counsellors designed a structured experiment to test the effects of four pedagogical strategies: confronting the children with a rearranged activity corner;…

Unstructured activity periods are central components of early childhood education programs. Deficits in social communication and social interaction presented by children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) become apparent in these settings during unstructured activities, such as outdoor recess. Thirty-two preschool-age children with and without…

Inclusive education is now advocated as best practice in schools. However, the extent to which adolescents with severe disabilities access the abundant social and academic experiences available in general education classes remains uncertain. We conducted multiple observations of 146 U.S. high school students with severe disabilities (including…

The present study validates a new procedure that combines continuous measures of proximity (Ubisense) and vocalization (LENA) into measures of peer social interaction. The data were collected from 4 boys and 5 girls (ages 2-3 at the outset) on 8 separate days (3-4 hours per day) over the course of an academic year. Teacher reports of friendship…

Children with hearing loss often attend inclusive preschool classrooms aimed at improving their spoken language skills. Although preschool classrooms are fertile environments for vocal interaction with peers, little is known about the dyadic processes that influence children's speech to one another and foster their language abilities and how these…

Friendships are developmentally important and personally beneficial relationships for all children and youth. Despite emphasis from families and educators of students with severe disabilities on the importance of promoting and supporting friendships with their typically developing (TD) peers in inclusive settings, such relationships remain…

Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, distance learning and social isolation have dramatically changed the social and learning experiences of adolescents. Given that social isolation can adversely affect students' psychosocial well-being, our study examined the extent to which ICT competences, resilience, and individual types of contact with teachers and…

Many children may need the help of another person to attend school. It is common for children with disabilities to receive help from a teaching assistant at school. Assistants are provided in many countries as a legal right and are often publicly funded. It is also widely assumed that having teaching assistants in the class is an effective and…

The purpose of this study was to examine the factors that influence the attitudes of students towards peers identified as having special educational needs (SEN) in Portuguese mainstream schools. Data were collected from a sample of 1093 students from 5th to 9th grade across Madeira Autonomous Region. Data collection instruments included the…