Ethnic, Gender, and Age Preferences among Deaf and Hearing Preschool Peers

Abstract

The present study concerns ethnic, age, and gender playmate preferences of deaf and hearing preschoolers who were observed during outdoor free play at their respective schools over a 7-month period. Hispanic, black, and white children were included. It was hypothesized that peer preferences would be less apparent among deaf children than among hearing children if these preferences were based on (a) language differences between ethnic groups (e.g., Spanish-English differences), age groups (e.g., verbal fluency differences), or gender groups; or (b) cultural values communicated by speech. Both deaf and hearing children preferred to play with children of the same ethnicity, gender, and age as themselves. In addition, play among children of the same ethnicity, gender, and age was qualitatively different from play among children of different ethnicity, gender, and age. The only effect of deafness was to decrease the amount of gender segregation that occurred. The results suggest that the development of ethnic, gender, and age playmate preferences is not dependent on intergroup language differences or spoken cultural messages. Several nonlinguistic factors that might contribute to early peer preferences are discussed.

A Comparison of the Peer Social Behavior of Children Who are Deaf/Hard of Hearing and Hearing

“…These co-variates were selected in order to statistically control for the differences in child characteristics within and between groups. Although the children who were D/HH differed in degree of hearing loss, the significant variable affecting peer social behavior is not the degree of hearing loss itself, but the child's social maturity, communicative competence, and age (Guralnick, 1992;Lederberg, Chapin, Rosenblatt, & Vandell, 1986;Levine & Antia, in press). …”

“…In two separate studies Lederberg, Ryan, and Robbins (1986) and Lederberg, Chapin, Rosenblatt, and Vandell (1986) found that only 5% -7% of the interaction between D/HH children was linguistic. Levy-Shiff and Hoffman (1985) found that preschoolers who were D/HH engaged in significantly less conversation than hearing peers, while Antia and Kreimeyer (1987), Kreimeyer and Antia (1988) and Antia et al (1994) have consistently reported that children who are D/HH engaged in non-linguistic interaction more frequently than linguistic interaction.…”