We used an alternating-treatments design (Barlow & Hersen, 1984) to investigate the effects of instructionalversus non-instructional roles on the interactions of general education high school students and theirpeers with disabilities. There were three experimental conditions: (a) an instructionalrole condition, (b) a non-instructional role condition, and (c) a continuousbaseline condition. Findings indicatethat during the non-instructional role condition, studentsengaged in more social-related than activity-related interactions than during the othertwoexperimental conditions. Students alsodiscussed a greater variety of conversational topics during the non-instructional condition, and theirinteractions received higher ratings of quality of interaction from (a) observers and (b) general education participants. Implications offindings are discussed with respect tofuture research and practice.
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