Facilitating Social Development in Early Childhood

Allen and Cowdery, The Exceptional Child: Inclusion in Early Childhood Education, Ninth Edition. © 2022 Cengage. All
Rights Reserved. May not be scanned, copied or duplicated, or posted to a publicly accessible website, in whole or in part.
Facilitating Social Development
Chapter 15

Chapter Objectives (1 of 2)
By the end of this chapter, you should be able to:
15-1 explain how social development is related to other areas of
development.
15-2 provide an example of why it is difficult to define appropriate social
skills.
15-3 describe how social skills are developed and the impact a
developmental disability can have on their development.

Chapter Objectives (2 of 2)
By the end of this chapter, you should be able to:
15-4 outline the role early learning programs play in the development of play
skills.
15-5 list strategies that teachers use to structure and support peer
interactions.
15-6 describe the process teachers might use if children need additional
support in the area of social development.

Social Development
The Four How’s
• How to Approach
• How to Interact
• How to Deal with Difference
• How to Manage Conflict

Social Skills and Overall Development
• Social skills cannot be separated from overall development.
• While engaged in a social conversation, language, physical skills, and
cognitive skills are intertwined.
• Therefore, social skills need to be taught and reinforced to all children.

Knowledge Check Activity 1
What developmental skills are evident when a child runs, picks up an item,
and puts it on the table?
a. Cognitive skills
b. Large and small motor skills
c. Memory
d. Communication skills

Knowledge Check Activity 1 Answer
What developmental skills are evident when a child runs, picks up an item,
and puts it on the table?
Answer: b. Large and small motor skills.

Defining Appropriate Social Skills
• Appropriate social skills are rules and expectations prescribed by particular
groups as to how group members will conduct themselves in private and in
public.
• Prescriptions for what is socially appropriate vary from community to
community, society to society, and culture to culture.
• The major social skills learned in early childhood relate to getting along with
others.
• Children need to be provided opportunities to interact with peers, adults,
and family members.

Necessary Ingredients for Learning Social Skills
Cultural competence—knowledge of, comfort with, and respect for people of varying
ethnic or racial backgrounds
Planning and decision-making skills—the ability to make choices, solve problems,
and plan ahead
Self-regulation—the ability to monitor self, reflect on feelings, and resist temptation
and peer pressure
Interpersonal skills—maintaining friendly relationships and communicating needs,
ideas, and feelings
Positive self-identity—demonstrating sense of competence, purpose, and worth
Social values—exhibiting caring and demonstrating responsibility, honesty, and
flexibility

Temperament and Emotions
• Three main types:
• Easy
• Difficult
• Slow to warm up
• Emotions are felt, but reactions to the emotions are learned.
• Appropriate responses to an emotion need to be taught.

Social Reinforcement (1 of 2)
Key elements required of early relationships of young children
• Reliable support that establishes confidence in the adult
• Responsiveness to the child
• Protection from harm
• Affection that develops self-esteem
• Opportunities to solve problems and resolve conflict
• Support for growth of new skills
• Reciprocal interaction by which children learn the give-and-take of relationships
• Mutual respect

Social Reinforcement (2 of 2)
Adult responsiveness
• This refers to how an adult responds to a young child’s needs.
• If the response is immediate and appropriate, then the child and the adult are satisfied.
• If the response is delayed or inappropriate, then the child becomes mistrustful and wary of
the environment.

Impact of Developmental Disabilities
• Infants who do not respond in the typical sense with smiles, coos, or eye
gazing often are not stimulated by the caregivers to express emotion.
• Overstimulated children tend to withdraw and turn away from caregivers’
show of emotion.
• Over responding children cannot control their responses and often turn a
caregiver off emotionally.

Social Skills in Sequence
• Attachment
• Joint attention
• Separation protest
• Fear of strangers
• Stranger anxiety
• Theory of mind
• Pretend and role-playing

The Role of Early Learning Programs
• Programs play a crucial role in the development of appropriate social skills
• Provide opportunities to learn social skills, such as self-help routines
• Children learn how to function as individuals within a group
• making contributions of general interest
• practicing ways of interrupting tactfully
• Arrange the environment and teach skills that are critical to positive
relationships
• being aware of others, helping others, sharing, making efforts to maintain social
interactions, organizing play with others, giving compliments, negotiating, solving
conflicts.

Types of Play (1 of 2)
Unoccupied behavior
• Child isn’t engaging in any obvious play activity or social interaction
• Watches but shows no interest in a particular child or group
Onlooker behavior
• Child spends most of their time watching other children play
• Within speaking distance and may talk, ask questions, or give suggestions, but doesn’t
participate
Solitary play
• Child’s play is independent of what others are doing
• No efforts are made to get closer to or speak to the other children

Types of Play (2 of 2)
Parallel play
• Child is playing close to and beside, rather than with, the other children
• Neither influenced by nor tries to influence the others
Associative play
• Child plays with other children, play material and equipment are shared
• No organization of activity or individuals
Cooperative play
• Occurs in a group, which is established for a particular purpose
• Different roles for the children

Teaching Children to Play (1 of 3)
1. Arranging for the child to be near other children in a given activity, enabling
the teacher to describe what other children are doing to promote imitation
2. Physically guiding the child to a play activity and helping them to settle in
• Walk with Jenny to the housekeeping area and say, “everybody’s trying on hats. Let’s
go find one for you to wear”
3. Handing material to the child to establish physical contact and stimulate
play: “here’s a ball of clay for you,” as you place it in the child’s hands

4. Putting an object in the child’s hand and moving the hand so it is directly
above a container
5. Verbalizing to the child what they are doing: “You have a clothespin in your
hand. You can drop it in the can”
6. Rejoicing over the smallest accomplishments: “Look at that!” (Or “Did you
hear that!”); “You dropped the clothespin in the can”

7. Gradually helping other children join in activities once the child has
acquired a semblance of a play skill (two children might drop clothespins
into the same can): “Here, Damon, you can put your clothespin in, too”
8. Providing social reinforcement for the play: “It looks like you two are going
to fill that can full of clothespins”
9. Moving the child slowly but steadily toward group play by building small
groups of two, then three, nonthreatening children who participate with the
child in simple play activities.

Incidental Social Learning (1 of 3)
• Explain differences among children as needed
• Do not deny differences in physical abilities
• Find some area in which the children are similar
• Do not criticize a child for noticing and asking questions about physical
differences
• Answer questions honestly and openly
• Use simple words the child can understand
• Do not lightly dismiss children’s expressions of fear or anxieties about
disabilities
• Encourage social interactions

To encourage incidental social learning:
• Move closer, kneel down, watch with interest, but avoid eye contact to keep from
interrupting the children’s mutual focus
• Smile and nod if either child turns toward the teacher but keep the focus on the activity, not
the child with disabilities
• Bring new materials to the interaction
• Make encouraging comments, keeping the play going

Sharing and turn-taking
• A difficult concept for children because they have to give up what is theirs to meet the
needs of someone else
Self-assertion
• Teach children to stand up for what is theirs and not let others just take from them.
Materials and equipment
• Provide multiple materials in areas where more than one child can play at a time.
• Encourage imitation by providing two of some toys

Imitation and Modeling
• Arrange the environment to ensure that interactions take place
• Reinforce the children for playing together
• Reinforce imitation of appropriate behaviors

What development precedes the cooperative stage?
a. Children’s interest in each other
b. Interest in the same materials
c. Focus on materials and equipment rather than on other children
d. Forming more or less durable relationships

What development precedes the cooperative stage?
Answer: c. Focus on materials and equipment rather than on other children

Teacher-Structured Peer Interactions
• Create activities in which all children must participate for the game to work
• Groupings can be made based on mutual interests, temperament, or
abilities
• Discovery play sets up the activity for the children to engage in and work
together.

Peer Tutoring and Peer Mediating
Common elements of peer-mediated strategies
• Children who are typically developing are given a chance to explain a new idea to a peer.
• Mediation is done to keep children engaged.
• Children with disabilities get the chance to play with others.
• Teachers provide support and encouragement.
Peer tutoring
• The child with the disability learns from the peer.
• The peer is given a chance to refine and master a skill.

Additional Ways Teachers Can Structure and
Facilitate Learning
• Choose stories that focus on character development
• Practice manners
• Seat children close to appropriate models at circle time and large group
activities
• Prompt peers to look at each other when they are uncertain what to do next
• Provide group projects
• Initiate a buddy center
• Ensure that adults do not become translators between children with
disabilities and their typical peers

Case Study
Simon is a three-year-old with autism. Simon was supported when he attended his community
preschool by a shadow aide responsible for helping facilitate social interactions with peers and
classroom teachers.
Simon had limited peer interaction skills. He watched his peers play. He would greet them
enthusiastically upon entering his preschool. He would play chase games with them at recess.
However, each day he would push or hit any peer that came close to or touched a toy that
Simon wanted.
The frequency of his hitting peers increased as the number of peers in the play area
increased. This led to several peers being fearful of him. His shadow aide started “Friend
Time.” During this time, Simon would invite a friend to join him.
Initially, the shadow aide had to prompt this. Simon and the peer would go with the shadow
aide to a quiet corner of the room where they would play together with a special game or toys
and practice social interaction skills that Simon could use later in the classroom.

Case Study Debrief
1. What social skills should the shadow aide target for teaching?
2. What types of activities do you think the shadow aide might use to facilitate
these skills?
3. How might the shadow aide evaluate progress and determine success?

When More Intervention Is Needed
• Provide a quiet small group area for the child to practice social interaction
• Give the child time to practice with the teacher before engaging another
child
• Use the tiered framework for intervention to model support
• One-to-one shadowing
• Model and support child in interaction

According to the tiered framework of intervention, how would one deal with a
child who has difficulty following instructions, regulating emotions, and
developing relationships?
a. Focus on the first level of the framework to include the development of nurturing and
responsive relationships as well as providing high quality environments
b. Focus on the second level of the framework, which includes classroom preventative
practices
c. Focus on the third level of the framework: social and emotional teaching strategies
d. Conduct intensive intervention as a final level of the framework

According to the tiered framework of intervention, how would one deal with a
child who has difficulty following instructions, regulating emotions, and
developing relationships?
Answer: c. Focus on the third level of the framework: social and emotional teaching
strategies.

Summary (1 of 2)
Now that the lesson has ended, you should have learned how to:
• Explain how social development is related to other areas of development.
• Provide an example of why it is difficult to define appropriate social skills.
• Describe how social skills are developed and the impact a developmental disability can
have on their development.

Summary (2 of 2)
Now that the lesson has ended, you should have learned how to:
• Outline the role early learning programs play in the development of play skills.
• List strategies that teachers use to structure and support peer interactions.
• Describe the process teachers might use if children need additional support in the area of
social development.

Facilitating Social Development in Early Childhood

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