The impact of social information processing on peer relations in pediatric traumatic brain injury

Children with traumatic brain injury (TBI) often display poor social adjustment compared to children without TBI. Little is known regarding the nature of social deficits in TBI, but models of social competence suggest links between social information-processing (SIP), peer acceptance, and friendship. However, no studies to date have documented the relationship between these constructs in a sample of children with TBI. Participants included 8 to 13 year old children, 25 with severe TBI, 57 with complicated mild-to-moderate TBI, and 61 with orthopedic injuries (OI). Children were asked to respond to scenarios involving a negative social situation with an unclear cause by selecting from a fixed set of choices that assessed their attribution for the cause of the event, their emotional reaction to the event, and how they would behave in response. Peer nominations and sociometric ratings were obtained at a separate classroom visit, completed by a subset of all participants. On the measure of SIP, children with severe TBI were less likely than children with OI to make attributions of external blame or respond by avoiding the antagonist; they were more likely to report feelings of sadness and request adult intervention. Compared to children with OI, children with severe TBI also were more likely to have no mutual friends in their classroom. However, only avoidant responses were found to mediate the relationship between injury group and peer relationships, such that avoidance was detrimental to peer relationships (both peer acceptance and reciprocal friendships). Although children with TBI demonstrate poor peer relationships, the findings provide little evidence to suggest that SIP mediates the relationship between TBI and peer relations. Future studies should determine the relationship between SIP and children’s observed social behaviors, which mediate the relationship between SIP and peer relations.

Name thesis:degree_name

Doctor of Philosophy

Level thesis:degree_level

doctoral

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Psychology

Grantor dc:publisher

The Ohio State University

Year dc:date

2013

Author dc:creator

• Moran, Lisa Marie Tonik

Contributors dc:contributor

• Yeates, Keith

• Clinical Psychology
• Traumatic brain injury
• pediatric
• social cognition

Statement dc:rights

• unrestricted
• This thesis or dissertation is protected by copyright: all rights reserved. It may not be copied or redistributed beyond the terms of applicable copyright laws.

Language dc:language

English

Repository record dc:identifier

http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1363358050

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:etd.ohiolink.edu:osu1363358050