Adolescent Peer Tutoring and Special Friend Experiences

Abstract

Fifteen high school peer tutors and 15 “special friends” interacted daily for a semester with a class of 9 students with severe disabilities. Two measurement systems were employed: an attitude survey and social behavior probes. Social behavior probes were conducted with a familiar student with autism (i.e., a student from the special education class), an unfamiliar student with autism, and an unfamiliar nonhandicapped student. A pretest-posttest experimental design with control group was employed. In general, statistical comparisons of the groups indicated that serving as a peer tutor was equivalent to serving as a special friend across the two measures. However, on one measure (social interaction with an unfamiliar peer with autism) the special friends showed significantly higher levels of social interaction. Both groups interacted more frequently with the familiar student with autism than the unfamiliar student with autism or the unfamiliar nonhandicapped peer. The experimental groups produced substantially longer interactions than the control group.

Classwide Peer Tutoring: An Integration Strategy to Improve Reading Skills and Promote Peer Interactions Among Students With Autism and General Education Peers

“…This supports previous findings in the use of peer-mediated strategies to increase academic performance within heterogeneous classroom environments (e.g., Barbetta et al, 1990;Greenwood et al, 1987;Johnson et al, 1990), with additional collateral social benefits (Eiserman, 1988;Kohler & Greenwood, 1990;Polirstok & Greer, 1986). Of utmost importance, the study adds to the growing body of literature that supports continued opportunities for peer interactions and programmed activities within integrated environments to promote social acceptance by typical peers and general education personnel (Guralnick & Groom, 1988;Haring et al, 1987;Sailor et al, 1989).…”

“…Other restrictions or limiting characteristics of academic and social investigations have included (a) the use of peers that are much older than the students with disabilities, (b) the use of "reverse mainstreaming" (i.e., bringing the general education peers to the special education classrooms or isolated environments), or (c) significant modifications of the general education program or costly, intensive training for the students with disabilities (e.g., Almond, Rodgers, & Krug, 1979;Carr & Darcy, 1990;Egel et al, 1981;Haring, Breen, Pitts-Conway, Lee, & Gaylord-Ross, 1987;. Therefore, additional research is needed to determine the effects of peer-mediated strategies on academic and social skills of children with autism in integrated classroom settings.…”

Units of Analysis of Social Interaction Outcomes in Supported Education

“…The construct of social willingness for interaction emerged as a stable and replicable factor (cf. Haring et al, 1987).…”

“…In recent work by Haring et al (1987), which exam ined the effects of friendship-based interactions and tutorial interactions on the attitudes of high school students toward their same-age peers with disabilities, it was found that both instructional and social contexts led equally to an improvement in attitudes. When follow-up probes were conducted measuring actual in teractions, peers who had experienced only social op portunities with peers with disabilities showed slightly higher levels of interactiveness as compared with peers who had been exposed to tutorial interactions alone.…”

Intervenciones sociocomunicativas en los trastornos del espectro autista de alto funcionamiento

“…Además, con algunas pocas excepciones (ver Laushey y Heflin, 2000), estas interacciones sociales no se generalizan en otros contextos, con pares no entrenados (ver Rogers, 2000, para una revisión). En el mismo sentido, la mayoría de los estudios encuentra que este entrenamiento de iguales se traduce en un importante incremento de las iniciaciones sociales de los niños con desarrollo normal, pero menor en los niños con autismo Haring, Breen, Pitts-Conway, Lee, y Gaylord-Ross, 1987;Sainato, Goldstein y Strain, 1992). Zercher et al (2001) estudiaron a dos hermanos gemelos de 6,3 años con autismo, con 3 hermanas de desarrollo normal de 5,5; 9,6; y 11,9 años.…”