Involving rural nonhandicapped children in teaching social interaction skills to behavior disordered/multiply handicapped elementary students

Abstract

Severely behavior disordered children with accompanying multiple handicaps usually have little or no appropriate social interaction skills. The purpose of this study was to determine if naive (i.e., untrained), normal children's interaction with severely behavior disordered children would increase the rate of appropriate social behaviors exhibited by the behavior disordered children. Results indicated a significant increase in social interactions when nonhandicapped children were assigned to play with a specific behavior disordered/multiply handicapped child. The described intervention strategies are replicable for rural programs.