You Gotta Have Friends: An Analysis of Social Relations in Preschool Children With Speech and Language Impairment

This study explored various dimensions of peer relations in a total of 67 children in one of three groups: typically developing children, children with language impairment, and children with speech and language impairments. Specifically, this study investigated peer acceptance, friendship quantity, and friendship quality through the use of several measures and a variety of statistical analyses. Several notable findings emerged. First, children with language impairment or speech/language impairment, as a group, scored lower on measures of peer acceptance and had fewer reciprocal friendships than their typically developing peers. Notably, children in the language impaired or speech and language impaired groups differed significantly from the typically developing group in achieving at least one reciprocal relationship. That is, children in these two groups more often had no reciprocal friendships. Second, several receptive and expressive language measures positively correlated with peer relationship measures, specifically reciprocal friendships. Finally, these measures also provided a good measure of predictability for which children in the study did and did not have reciprocal relationships. Scientific and clinical implications regarding these findings are further discussed.

Name thesis:degree_name

Ph.D.

Level thesis:degree_level

Dissertation

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Speech and Hearing Science

Grantor

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Year dc:date

2015

Author dc:creator

• Nungesser, Nicole Renee

Contributors dc:contributor

• Watkins, Ruth V.

• Education, Early Childhood

Language dc:language

eng

Identifier

(MiAaPQ)AAI3202148

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:www.ideals.illinois.edu:2142/85213