Journal of Early Intervention, 1999Vol . 22, No . I, 70–86Copyright 1999 by the Division of Early Childhood . Council for Exceptional Children

The Nature and Meaning of SocialIntegration for Young Children With MildDevelopmental Delays in Inclusive Settings

MICHAEL J. GURALNICKUniversity of Washington

This paper examines fundamental conceptual, methodological, and outcome issues with respect tothe social integration of preschool-age children with mild developmental delays in inclusive earlychildhood settings. Cast within a developmental-ecological framework, social integration isevaluated in terms of three constructs : (1) the connectedness of peer interactions ; (2) the quality ofinterpersonal relationships ; and (3) the nature of adjustments that occur during social exchanges.A general model of factors that influence social integration and their interrelationships is presentedas a means of organizing future intervention activities to promote social integration.

One expectation of inclusive practices is thatmeaningful social relationships will form be-tween children with and without special needsas they become familiar with one another in ear-ly childhood settings . This expectation that so-cial integration will occur with respect to chil-dren's peer relationships and friendships seemsreasonable because inclusive practices empha-size principles and values that seek to maximizerespect for individual differences in develop-

It, ensure equal access, and foster a sense of.,belonging to a common community (Guralnick,1978, 1990) . Ideally, we would hope that inclu-sive early childhood programs would be char-acterized by children's willingness to under-stand, go beyond, accept, and even overlook de-velopmental differences, unusual behavior pat-terns, or certain physical characteristics of theirpeers, and establish productive social relation-ships . To support the development of these pos-itive relationships between children with andwithout special needs, the programmatic designof quality early childhood settings should ex-emplify inclusive principles and values by pro-moting full participation of all children in socialand nonsocial activities, and by adapting andaccommodating to children's special needs.

In view of the importance of what is certainlya core issue in our field, the degree to which the

goal of social integration has been achieved ininclusive preschool settings is examined in thispaper. To do so, a conceptual and methodolog-ical framework is established first to character-ize the nature and meaning of social integrationin inclusive settings . This is followed by a sec-tion in which the available data on social inte-gration are organized and evaluated within thisframework. Finally, two general approaches de-signed to promote social integration are consid-ered, and a general model relating factors influ-encing social integration is presented.

It is important to note that this discussionwill be limited to preschool-age children withmild developmental (cognitive) delays .' This

' The population of children with mild developmental (cognitive)delays described in this paper was carefully defined using well-accepted criteria based on intelligence test scores and measures ofadaptive behavior. Specific exclusionary criteria also were estab-lished with respect to children's behavior problems, sensory def-icits, motor impairments, and communication disorders . Etiologyof the delay (when known) was not considered, as the categoricaldefinition was applied uniformly. Of note, within this relativelyhomogenous and well-defined population, only weak associationsare obtained between peer-related social competence and intelli-gence or language measures, although behavior problems are morestrongly correlated (Guralnick, Connor. Hammond, Gottman, &Kinnish . I996a; Guralnick & Groom 1985) . Individual differencesin peer interactions and social integration appear to he related tomore process-type factors (see text) . Other well-defined popula-tions, such as children with communication disorders, are likelyto exhibit patterns different from those found for children withmild developmental delays (e .g ., Guralnick, Connor, Hammond,Gottman, & Kinnish, 1996h).

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is a relatively high incidence group even atthe preschool level ; one that generally is in-cluded in typical preschool or daycare set-tings . Moreover, by focusing on children withmild developmental delays, a framework forexamining critical developmental and contextissues can be established ; something notreadily accomplished for heterogeneousgroups of children . In fact, it will be arguedthat both developmental and ecological per-spectives are essential for a complete under-standing of social integration in inclusive set-tings for this group of children . Such a per-spective may encourage similar approachesfor other well-defined groups of children.

THE MEANING OF SOCIALINTEGRATION

Unfortunately, no generally accepted criteriaexist that can inform us about the extent towhich social integration has been achieved.Consequently, a framework that carefullyspecifies expectations for specific patterns ofsocial integration outcomes is needed . Theseexpectations can then be evaluated to deter-mine if specified outcomes have been realized.Of importance, establishing expectations issomewhat arbitrary and will vary with thepurpose or value framework developed toguide the analysis . A reasonable approach(though perhaps idealized) is to expect full in-tegration to be found across all specified so-cial interaction dimensions . Other approachesmay establish lower expectations or may an-ticipate differences in social integration fordifferent dimensions of social interaction ordifferences depending upon whether assess-ments are obtained from the perspective ofchildren with or without developmental de-lays. The important point is that expectationsare made explicit.

Conceptually, an outcomes-based frame-work assumes that identified patterns of socialintegration meaningfully represent variationsin children's social experiences . Correspond-ingly, it assumes that a methodology is avail-able or can be constructed in which measurescan be derived to index identified social in-tegration patterns . There are few domains in

development, however, that are more difficultto conceptualize or to assess than the domainof peer-related social development (Howes,1988) . The complexity of this issue becomesapparent when we realize what must be con-sidered : (a) the various manifestations of so-cial integration (e .g ., active acceptance, pas-sive integration, exclusion, rejection), (b) thevarying strengths of a relationship (e .g., ac-quaintanceship, intimate friendship), (c) thedifferent types of data (e .g ., observational,phenomenological), (d) the specific character-istics of playmates (e .g ., chronological age,gender), and (e) the context in which peer in-teractions take place (e .g ., free-play or struc-tured activities ; dramatic play or motor-ori-ented activities) . Thus, the first challenge foran outcomes approach is to define (with ex-pectations) and measure the dimensions of so-cial integration as represented in inclusive set-tings. Then, we must examine the availabledata in relation to this set of expectations anddimensions.

EVALUATING SOCIALINTEGRATION OUTCOMES

To establish an outcomes framework, three so-cial integration constructs and correspondingmeasures are defined and examined: (a) theconnectedness (or extent) of peer interactions;(b) the quality of interpersonal relationships;and (c) the nature of adjustments that occurduring social exchanges . Data relevant to eachof these three social integration constructs inrelation to interactions occurring betweenchildren with and without developmental de-lays are presented.

It is important to point out that the socialintegration of children with mild developmen-tal delays will be evaluated in relation to typ-ically developing chronological age mates.Despite the fact that children with mild de-velopmental delays are less developmentallyadvanced than typically developing childrenof the same age, parents view typically de-veloping age mates as the appropriate refer-ence group for their child (Guralnick, Connor,& Hammond, 1995). In addition, social inte-gration as evaluated within the framework of

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the three social integration constructs will pri-marily take place from the perspective of thetypically developing children. Moreover, inthis analysis, the expectation (hypothesis) isthat complete social integration is achievedwhen typically developing children are con-nected to and maintain the same quality ofinterpersonal relationships with children withmild developmental delays as they do withchildren without delays. This analysis furtherassumes that for complete social integration tooccur, typically developing children mustmake appropriate adjustments to the uniquedevelopmental characteristics of children withdelays . This ideal, but by no means unreason-able, expectation is examined below.

Most studies of social integration have in-cluded heterogeneous groups of children withdisabilities, often consisting of children exhib-iting a range of motor, cognitive, behavioral,and communicative disabilities . In my earlierreview of the social integration literature(Guralnick, 1981 a), the interactions of typi-cally developing children with other typicallydeveloping children formed the referencepoint from which to evaluate the extent of in-tegration for diverse groups of children withdisabilities . Despite the heterogeneity of theparticipants and measures, one particularlyconsistent pattern emerged from these impor-tant early studies (Cavallaro & Porter, 1980;Guralnick, 1980 ; Ispa & Matz, 1978 ; Peterson& Haralick, 1977 ; Porter, Ramsey, Tremblay,Iaccobo, & Crawley, 1978 ; White, 1980) . Spe-cifically, the degree of social separation in-creased as a function of the severity of thechild's disability . Of importance, despite con-siderable within group variability, social sep-aration was observed even for children withmild disabilities . Moreover, more recent stud-ies continue to document similar patterns.Whether indexed by social exchanges, proso-cial behaviors, or friendships, or assessed viaobservational or peer sociometric measures,diverse groups of preschool-age children withdisabilities are less preferred playmates bytypically developing children than are othertypically developing children (e .g., Blackmon& Dembo, 1984 ; Nabors, 1997 ; Strain, 1984).

Unfortunately, the generally small number

of participants found in the studies of socialintegration has not allowed analyses of spe-cific subgroups of children, such as childrenwith mild developmental delays who are thefocus of this paper. The value of "specificity,"i .e ., selecting well-defined and more homo-geneous subgroups of children, has been em-phasized for the domain of social integration(Buysse & Bailey, 1993 ; Guralnick, 1981b)and for the general field of early intervention(Guralnick, 1997b, 1998) . In addition, existinggroups of children with and without disabili-ties usually have been observed in these stud-ies, yet few efforts have been made to controlfor relevant child and family characteristicssuch as chronological age, gender, socioeco-nomic status, or familiarity . In the absence ofthese experimental controls, it is difficult tointerpret findings on social integration withina developmental framework.

The only series of studies in which rela-tively homogenous groups of children withmild developmental delays can be separatelyanalyzed is that of Guralnick and his col-leagues (Guralnick et al ., 1998; Guralnick,Connor, Hammond, Gottman, & Kinnish,1996a ; Guralnick, Gottman, & Hammond,1996 ; Guralnick & Groom, 1987, 1988a ; Gur-alnick & Paul-Brown, 1984, 1986, 1989).Consequently, only results from this researchprogram will be presented . It is important tonote that children in this series of studies par-ticipated in short-term (2–4 weeks) play-groups created specifically for research pur-poses . Although the playgroup methodologyoffers many advantages (e .g ., precise match-ing of subjects, children free of reputationbias), its conclusions may be limited to spe-cific features of the playgroup parameters.Thus, to assess the generalizability of the find-ings, comparisons also will be made to relatedresearch.

ConnectednessMost would agree that the extent to whichchildren with and without developmental de-lays are socially connected with one anotherconstitutes an important aspect of what ismeant by social integration . The critical ques-tion based on expectations established for this

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analysis, however, is whether all children areequally connected socially, irrespective oftheir developmental status . From a quantita-tive perspective, it is possible to determinewhether or not children with and without de-velopmental delays interact with one anotherto the extent represented simply by their avail-ability in the preschool setting. As such, theextent to which children show a preference forplaymates based on developmental levelserves as a key index of social integration.Connectedness, however, is likely to vary interms of the social demands placed on theplay partners . Passive type play (e .g ., parallel,onlooker) places the least demands ; interac-tive social exchanges, such as those occurringduring associative or group play, consistentlyplace more demands on a relationship ; andmaintaining a friendship is clearly the mostdemanding form of connectedness.

As might be expected, when available dataare examined in relation to each of the threemajor dimensions of connectedness (i .e., pas-sive play, interactive play, friendship), differ-ent patterns of social integration are found.For passive play measures such as parallelplay or onlooker behavior, social separation isfound to exist between children with and with-out developmental delays, but only to a rela-tively minor extent in comparison to assess-ments of more interactive play . In contrast, so-cial separation is clearly evident for more so-cially interactive forms of play . This isparticularly the case when interactive playconsists of extended and active social ex-changes such as positive social interactions orgroup play (Guralnick et al ., 1996a; Guralnick& Groom, 1987) . Generally, for interactivemeasures of social integration, typically de-veloping children interact with children withdevelopmental delays about half as often asexpected, based on the number of childrenavailable in the two groups (typically devel-oping, mildly delayed).

Within group variation is certainly appar-ent, but perhaps the most salient observationis the substantial separation that exists be-tween children with and without mild devel-opment delays for more extended and activesocial exchanges . In fact, despite individual

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differences for these interactive measures,data from a recent study revealed no overlapfor the 95% confidence intervals of the meansfor children with and without delays . Onlyone delayed child received social interactionsfrom typically developing children above themean for typically developing children inter-acting with other typically developing chil-dren, and approximately 80% of typically de-veloping children prefer other typically devel-oping children to children with developmentaldelays (Guralnick et al ., 1996a).

The high level of social integration foundfor more passive measures, however, suggeststhat children with mild developmental delaysdo have numerous opportunities for observa-tional learning in relation to typically devel-oping children . Because the children oftenplay in close proximity to one another, passiveplay may well evolve into more active formsof play. Bakeman and Brownlee (1980) ob-served that parallel play often serves as a step-ping-stone to group play for typically devel-oping children, and this also may be the casefor children with mild developmental delays(Guralnick & Hammond, in press) . Findingsfor the passive measures also address a fre-quently stated expectation of inclusion ; that ofequal access . Based on this passive measureof social integration, children with and with-out delays seem to move about play areasfreely, engaging in activities of interest without regard to the developmental status of theirpeers.

The most demanding and rewarding aspectsof social relationships emerge when youngchildren establish dyadic friendships (seeHowes, 1988; Newcomb & Bagwell, 1995) . Aunilateral friendship is said to occur when onechild prefers a peer (usually indicated byspending more time with or more frequentlyinteracting positively with a specific peer), butthe peer does not show a similar preferencefor that child . Nevertheless, a clear preferenceis exhibited by one child . These unilateralfriendships are observed among a substantialproportion of preschool children, includingchildren with mild developmental delays.When analyzed in terms of the developmentalcharacteristics of the friend selected, typically

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developing children choose peers with milddelays to a much lesser extent than would beexpected based on their availability (Gural-nick et al ., 1996a; Guralnick & Groom,1988a) . When reciprocal friendships are eval-uated (mutual preferences for one another),typically developing children strongly preferother typically developing children . Of note,children with mild delays have considerabledifficulties forming reciprocal friendships ingeneral (Guralnick et al . ; Guralnick &Groom).

Interpersonal RelationshipsAnother perspective on social integration canbe obtained by examining the content of directinterpersonal exchanges . What is the qualityof those interactions? Are children with andwithout developmental delays treated similar-ly by typically developing children? Is thereevidence that typically developing childrenactively isolate or reject children with devel-opmental delays and does this contribute tothe patterns of social separation identified inthe previous section on connectedness?

It is important to note that based on a va-riety of measures, the vast majority of inter-actions occurring between children with andwithout developmental delays are positive inboth content and style . In fact, a compositemeasure based on social exchanges judged tobe negative does not indicate that childrenwith mild delays are singled out for poor treat-ment by typically developing children (Gur-alnick et al ., 1996a) . There are, however, somefairly subtle indicators suggesting interperson-al difficulties . An intensive analysis based onan utterance-by-utterance evaluation of social-communicative exchanges occurring betweenchildren with and without delays revealed anumber of concerns . Specifically, when typi-cally developing children request childrenwith delays to do something, they direct asmaller proportion of joint requests such as"let's" or "we," and they justify their re-quests less frequently . In addition, typicallydeveloping children direct a greater proportionof strong, particularly unmitigated directives(e .g ., "Do this!" "Give me that!") to childrenwith delays than to other typically developing

children, and they share information less often(Guralnick & Paul-Brown, 1984, 1989) . Al-though exchanges are not generally hostile orunusually negative, disagreements occur morefrequently when typically developing childreninteract with children with mild delays thanwhen they interact with other typically devel-oping children (Guralnick & Paul-Brown,1989) . This suggests the existence of a stress-ful relationship between children with andwithout developmental delays . In fact, inter-personal stress is particularly apparent duringconflict situations . Under those circumstances,typically developing children are more nega-tive and less positive to children with milddevelopmental delays than to other similar agetypically developing children (Guralnick etal ., 1998).

Findings consistent with both the connect-edness and interpersonal relationship mea-sures of social integration are obtained whentypically developing children are asked to ratetheir playmates in terms of the extent to whichthey like to play with a particular child (Asher,Singleton, Tinsley, & Hymel, 1979) . Whenthese peer sociometric ratings are carried out,typically developing children rate childrenwith delays as much lower (less overall ac-ceptance) and children with delays generallyreceive fewer positive and more negative rat-ings (Guralnick et al ., 1996a; Guralnick &Groom, 1987).

AccommodationsFor social interactions to be productive, par-ticipants must thoughtfully adapt not only tothe context but to the unique characteristics,styles, and abilities of their partner. When in-teracting with children of different ages, forexample, adjustments must be made relativeto the cognitive and linguistic characteristicsof the playmate; an adjustment that is ob-served to occur even for preschool children(e .g ., Shatz & Gelman, 1973) . Children withmild developmental delays, however, pose un-usually difficult challenges for their typicallydeveloping chronological age mates . That is,discrepancies existing between a peer's chro-nological age and his or her developmentalcharacteristics must somehow be resolved.

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Moreover, appropriate adjustments by typical-ly developing children to their playmate's cog-nitive, linguistic, and socioemotional charac-teristics reflect not only a sensitivity to com-plex individual differences, but also a willing-ness to work hard to initiate and maintainconnectedness to diverse types of children.

Interestingly, despite evidence of the inter-personal stress noted above, when typicallydeveloping children interact with develop-mentally delayed children they make a num-ber of important adjustments that appear to beresponsive to differing developmental char-acteristics of their companions, particularlytheir cognitive and linguistic levels . Specifi-cally, to better ensure appropriate communi-cation, typically developing children use moredirectives, clarify messages more often, andrely more upon multiple modes of communi-cation, particularly nonverbal strategies wheninteracting with children with developmentaldelays (Guralnick & Paul-Brown, 1984,1989) . These findings are consistent with typ-ically developing children taking more re-sponsibility to organize play ; an area of spe-cial concern for children with developmentaldelays (Guralnick & Groom, 1985, 1987).

Developmental FrameworkThe analyses presented above clearly suggestthat, from the perspective of typically devel-oping chronological age mates, children withdevelopmental delays are, for the most part,not thoroughly integrated socially. The extentto which children with developmental delaysare isolated from same age typically devel-oping children varies with the measure se-lected, but the pattern is nevertheless appar-ent . It is possible, however, that the behaviorof typically developing children toward chil-dren with developmental delays constitutes areasonable (from their perspective) pattern ofsocial interactions, one consistent with the de-velopmental level of the children with delays.Put simply, typically developing children maybe interacting with children with mild devel-opmental delays as they would with youngertypically developing children; i .e ., social in-teraction and preference patterns therefore areoccurring on the basis of a peer's develop-

mental level rather than developmental status.Although one might argue that even socialisolation of younger children is inappropriate,such chronological age separation may wellbe normative (e .g ., Strayer, 1980) . Conse-quently, this circumstance provides a devel-opmental explanation for the observed pat-terns of social separation involving similarage children with mild developmental delays.If this explanation constitutes a valid alterna-tive to separation based on the existence of achild's disability (i .e ., delay), then establishingexpectations for social integration outcomes ininclusive settings should consider these find-ings. That is, the expectations established forsocial integration might be more appropriatelylinked to patterns based on children's devel-opmental level . Again, the choice of expec-tations for social integration will depend onthe purposes and value framework articulatedby those conducting the analysis.

To rule out this developmental explanation,a matched group of younger typically devel-oping children is required . Studies of childrenwith delays that fail to include such a com-parison group (matched at minimum on thebasis of developmental level) leave open thealternative developmental explanation for anysocial integration differences observed be-tween chronological age mates with and with-out developmental delays. For studies inwhich matched groups of younger typicallydeveloping children have been included,available evidence indicates that children withmild developmental delays experience socialseparation for most measures even beyondthat which occurs for the matched group ofyounger typically developing children (Gur-alnick et al ., 1998; Guralnick & Groom, 1987;Guralnick & Paul-Brown, 1989) . Although adevelopmental level explanation can accountfor some of the differences discussed above(e .g ., typically developing children rate de-layed age mates as negatively as they rate de-velopmentally matched younger typically de-veloping children and they use similar strate-gies with both groups during conflicts), thecentral patterns of social separation identifiedearlier remain . Accordingly, it is something todo with children's developmental status rather

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than their developmental level that is respon-sible for much of the social separation thatemerges when children with developmentaldelays interact with typically developing chro-nological age mates in inclusive settings.

Of considerable importance is that analysesof the interaction patterns of younger typicallydeveloping children with the same develop-mental level as the children with delays pres-ent a similar and occasionally even more se-vere pattern of social separation from childrenwith developmental delays as obtained fortypically developing chronological age mates(Guralnick et al ., 1998 ; Guralnick & Groom,1987, 1988a ; Guralnick & Paul-Brown, 1989).In many respects, younger typically develop-ing children may have more difficulty (per-haps being less skillful) accommodating tochildren with delays than older typically de-veloping children, especially during conflicts(Guralnick et al .).

Some contradictory findings, however, arefound when "older" (5 to 6 year old) childrenwith developmental delays are observed inter-acting with younger typically developing chil-dren . Specifically, patterns of social separationare not as apparent as patterns of separationthat occur with chronological age mates (Gur-alnick & Paul-Brown, 1986; Ispa & Matz,1978) . Although matching on developmentallevel was not used in these studies of olderchildren with delays, children with and with-out delays were certainly more similar to oneanother developmentally because there was achronological age discrepancy. Additionalwork using appropriate matching is needed todetermine if kindergarten-age children withmild delays exhibit different patterns of socialintegration with younger typically developingchildren than do preschool-age children withmild delays.

Perspective of Children withDevelopmental DelaysThe preceding discussion has focused exclu-sively on social integration from the perspec-tive of typically developing children . Similaranalyses, however, can be carried out from theperspective of children with mild develop-mental delays. When playing, do children

with mild delays have preferences for otherchildren with delays or for typically devel-oping children? Does the developmental statusof the play partner affect responsiveness to thesocial bids of children with mild delays? Dochildren with mild delays experience interper-sonal difficulties to a different extent when in-teracting with children with or without devel-opmental delays? This is dependent in part onthe ability of children with delays to connectwith peers, some of whom may be reluctantor even difficult play partners . The ability ofchildren with developmental delays to makethe connections, however, constitutes an im-portant index of social integration from theirperspective . Many proponents of inclusionmay consider this form of social integrationto be of most significance and establish ex-pectations accordingly.

Interestingly, available evidence indicatesthat when children with mild delays engage inmore interactive social play such as groupplay, conversation, or rough and tumble play,they either show no preference or prefer tointeract with typically developing age mates(Guralnick et al ., 1996a; Guralnick & Groom,1987) . Global assessments of acceptancebased on peer sociometric measures, however,reveal that children with mild delays do prefertypically developing children . Similarly, forunilateral friendships, when children withmild delays reveal a preference, it is for typ-ically developing children (Guralnick et al .,1996 ; Guralnick & Groom, 1988a). Childrenwith mild delays also offer more joint direc-tives (let's, we) to typically developing chil-dren than to other children with mild delays(Guralnick & Paul-Brown, 1989) . For morepassive measures such as parallel play, how-ever, a preference for one group or another isgenerally not evident (Guralnick et al ., 1996a;Guralnick & Groom, 1987) . Similarly, onlyminor differences as a consequence of peers'developmental status are apparent with respectto responsiveness to the social bids of childrenwith delays, although there is some tendencyfor the responsiveness of typically developingchildren to children with delays to decreaseover time (Guralnick et al ., 1996a ; Guralnick& Groom, 1987).

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From an interpersonal perspective, similarto the experiences of typically developingchildren, children with mild delays have fewerdifficulties with typically developing childrenthan with other children with mild delays.They use fewer strong directives, share infor-mation more, have fewer disagreements, andare less negative and more positive duringconflicts with typically developing childrenthan with children with mild delays (Gural-nick et al ., 1998; Guralnick & Paul-Brown,1989).

Psychological Meaning of SocialSeparationTaken together, evidence suggests that an ab-sence of complete social integration existsfrom the perspective of typically developingchildren, especially for measures that requiremore intensive or intimate social relation-ships . Instances in which typically developingchildren overtly reject children with develop-mental delays are found, but this is not a dom-inant pattern . In contrast, it appears that socialseparation occurs primarily through a processof exclusion . As such, typically developingchildren simply prefer other typically devel-oping children and may ignore or avoid chil-dren with delays . For the most part, despitemore frequent disagreements, special difficul-ties occurring during conflicts, and the use ofmore demanding forms of speech, social ex-changes between children with and withoutdevelopmental delays are generally cordial,and there is little evidence suggesting an un-usually negative style of interacting . In addi-tion, typically developing children appear torecognize differences in their playmates' abil-ities and adjust interactions accordingly . Typ-ically developing children, however, do ratechildren with mild delays less positively andmore negatively when judging children withwhom they like to play.

As important as these objective assessmentsof social integration are, we have few insightsinto the personal meaning for those childrenbeing socially separated along the various di-mensions identified earlier. Does objectivelydefined social separation correspond to sub-jective experiences of rejection and impair the

self-esteem of children with mild develop-mental delays? If so, do these adverse effectshold only for certain dimensions (e .g ., friend-ships) of social separation? On the other hand,is it possible that the subjective experiencesof social separation as defined objectively re-sult in only transient levels of discomfort?

Even if we had the tools, it would be dif-ficult to isolate the psychological impact ofsocial separation on children with mild devel-opmental delays because social separation oc-curs in the context of many positive and per-haps beneficial social experiences involvingtypically developing children . We know that,when given a choice, children with mild de-velopmental delays often prefer and seek outtypically developing chronological age mates,and their experiences with typically develop-ing children are more productive than thosethat occur with other mildly delayed children(e .g ., more positive, less negative, share in-formation more) (see Guralnick et al ., 1998).Moreover, it does not appear that the presenceof a large proportion of typically developingchildren in inclusive settings suppresses thesocial relationships or the social interactionsof children with mild developmental delays.Both unilateral and reciprocal friendships oc-cur at the same rate in inclusive or segregatedsettings (Guralnick et al ., 1996a) . In addition,although the proportion of negative interac-tions is increased slightly in inclusive settings,the social interaction levels of children withdelays have consistently been found to behigher in inclusive as opposed to segregatedsettings (Buysse & Bailey, 1993 ; Guralnick etal ., 1996a; Guralnick & Groom, 1988b).

Generality of Patterns of SocialSeparationTo what extent do these patterns of social sep-aration generalize to different contexts? Everystudy, or even series of studies, is constrainedby its own unique research strategies and lim-ited set of parameters. The generality of theplaygroup strategy is of particular concern.Despite offering important controls over fa-miliarity among children and subject selec-tion, legitimate questions can be raised aboutthe representativeness of the social interaction

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patterns and the stability of those patterns overtime . These critical issues are discussed next.

With regard to whether free-play social in-teractions occurring in the playgroups are rep-resentative of free-play interactions occurringin more typical preschool programs, availableevidence suggests that the playgroups are in-deed ecologically valid settings . In particular,social play patterns among children developin the playgroups as would be expected basedon the developmental literature (Guralnick &Groom, 1987) . Moreover, children with de-velopmental delays exhibiting more sociallycompetent behavior during free-play in theplaygroups as evaluated through observationalmeasures are judged to be more socially com-petent in community settings as evaluated bytheir parents (Guralnick & Hammond, inpress) . The general absence of constraints infree play and the use of toys and materialssimilar to those in other studies further mini-mizes the possibility that the playgroups pro-duce an unusual pattern of social interactions.

The short-term nature of the playgroups(2–4 weeks), however, leaves open the possi-bility that social integration patterns maychange over time through processes related tochildren becoming more familiar with one an-other. Moreover, most quality inclusive pre-schools make concerted efforts to both fostersocial integration and to encourage acceptanceof individual differences . Over time, childrenmay respond favorably to these efforts, there-by producing social integration patterns dif-ferent from those obtained in short-term play-groups.

As noted earlier, none of the published non-playgroup studies separate out the social in-tegration patterns of children with mild de-velopmental delays . Virtually all studies in-cluded children with heterogeneous types andseverity of disability . Moreover, the programsincluded children with disabilities who oftenwere older (usually by 1 year) than the typi-cally developing children . Nevertheless, asdiscussed earlier, even for studies that primar-ily included children with mild disabilities,evidence supports the overall social integra-tion patterns found in the playgroups . Relatedstudies further suggest that only minor

changes in these patterns occur over time. Forexample, the proportion of social interactionsof children with disabilities directed towardtypically developing children did not changeover a 2 month period, despite continued in-tensive efforts to promote social interactionand social integration (Jenkins, Odom, &Speltz, 1989) . Similarly, time did not have anyimpact on the preference patterns of olderchildren with mild delays and typically de-veloping children (Guralnick, 1980) . In amore recent study, Diamond, LeFurgy, andBlass (1993) described an inclusive preschoolprogram that provided specific teaching aboutdisability and diversity issues . Despite theseefforts, peer sociometric measures revealedthat children with disabilities were rated lowerin acceptance than same-age typically devel-oping children, and that status remainedthroughout the school year. Interestingly, ev-idence for more complete social integrationhas been obtained from studies in which chil-dren with mild disabilities were older (es-pecially 1 year or more) than their typicallydeveloping classmates and demonstrated so-cial play skills similar to those of typicallydeveloping children (Ispa & Matz, 1978).Other studies show that, over time, some pos-itive social integration changes occur for chil-dren with disabilities but not for typically de-veloping children, although it is unclear whatlevel of social integration is actually achieved(Dunlop, Stoneman, & Cantrell, 1980) . How-ever, even under seemingly ideal conditions(e .g ., high levels of social skills exhibited bychildren with disabilities and a supportive,quality program), social separation is apparentwell into the school year (Ispa, 1981) . Relat-edly, preference patterns for typically devel-oping children, especially negative relation-ships, either remain stable or become increas-ingly selective and negative over the courseof the preschool year (Ramsey, 1995).

Accordingly, in the series of studies utiliz-ing the playgroup methodology, patterns ofsocial integration for children with mild de-velopmental delays appear to be robust . Sim-ilar findings are obtained across a wide rangeof program types, subject samples, times ofthe year, measures, and efforts to promote so-

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cial integration and social skills. This is notto say that quality inclusive programs are notable to promote social integration over time.There is every reason to believe that programswith well-developed inclusive philosophiesand practices, integrated thoughtfully withingeneral preschool activities, will yield morepositive social integration outcomes . Yet, free-play settings in which the nature of social ex-changes and choice of play partner are notconstrained by teachers' activities or limitedthrough play structures, yield considerable so-cial separation even in these quality programs.Why this might be the case and which ap-proaches have the potential to reduce existinglevels of social separation are discussed next.

PROMOTING SOCIALINTEGRATION

Despite the fact that the psychological and re-lated implications of social separation in in-clusive settings are not fully understood, ef-forts to maximize social integration remainimportant for ideological and developmentalreasons . From an ideological perspective, byencouraging the development of meaningfulsocial relationships between children with andwithout disabilities during the early years, afoundation for constructing an inclusive com-munity throughout the life span is established.Consistent with this expectation, research hasindicated that parents perceive that inclusiveearly childhood settings do, in fact, promoteacceptance of children with special needs, en-hance sensitivity to individual differences, andencourage the development of peer relationsand friendships among all children (Bailey &Winton, 1987 ; Guralnick, 1994 ; Guralnick etal ., 1995 ; Turnbull, Winton, Blacher, & Sal-kind, 1982) . From a developmental perspec-tive, increased social integration implies in-creased positive social experiences with peers.Should this be realized, it is likely that chil-dren with developmental delays will reap nu-merous developmental benefits in relation tocognitive, communicative, and general pro-social skills as well as foster an emergingsense of self (Bates, 1975 ; Garvey, 1986 ; Har-

tup, 1983 ; Howes, 1988 ; Rubin & Lollis,1988).

There also exists the possibility that in-creased social integration in classroom set-tings may have beneficial effects on social in-tegration in community settings . There is cer-tainly room for improvement as research hasshown that the community-based peer socialnetworks of young children with developmen-tal delays are more limited than those of typ-ically developing children (Byrne, Cunning-ham, & Sloper, 1988 ; Guralnick, 1997a ; Lew-is, Feiring, & Brooks-Gunn, 1987 ; Stoneman,Brody, Davis, & Crapps, 1988) . In addition,creating linkages between relationshipsformed with peers at preschool or daycare set-tings and those in their neighborhood are es-pecially problematic for young children withdevelopmental delays (Guralnick, 1997a).Similarly, even in inclusive settings, an all toocommon phenomenon is that social separationamong parents tends to occur in accordancewith the disability characteristics of their chil-dren (Bailey & Winton, 1989; Stoneman,1993).

Ecological ApproachesWhat factors contribute to the patterns of so-cial integration that have been described?Classroom-based state-of-the-art inclusivepractices can certainly play an important role.Quality programs, teachers well trained in in-clusive practices, and innovative curricula canfoster social integration (see Lamorey &Bricker, 1993) . Clearly, classroom environ-ments, established by state-of-the-art practic-es, can remove barriers to full social integra-tion and help set expectations about behaviorand attitudes for all children . In turn, positivechanges in relevant policy and correspondingadministrative or organizational environmentsgoverning inclusive preschools can be bene-ficial (Peck, 1993), as these more distal eco-logical factors are among those that can po-tentially affect the quality of inclusive pre-school practices . It remains to be seen, how-ever, whether these approaches will besufficient to dramatically alter the patterns ofsocial separation described (see also File,1994).

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It is perhaps the larger ecology of home,community, societal beliefs, attitudes, and ac-tions toward individuals with disabilities thatcan exert a more substantial influence on chil-dren's social integration patterns (see Stone-man, 1993) . Models analyzing how multipleecological factors affect inclusive processeshave been presented previously (Guralnick,1982 ; Peck, 1993) . For typically developingchildren in particular, the transmission of at-titudes from children's families and commu-nities with respect to an appreciation of di-versity, for example, is a complex process.American society has made extraordinary ad-vances in the past generation in fostering theinclusion of people with disabilities . However,inclusion for people with disabilities is certainto be affected by larger questions of how so-ciety is able to address the nature of diversityin general ; an issue that remains contentious.The concern, of course, is that far too manytypically developing children enter preschoolsettings with limited experiences with childrenwith disabilities and a set of attitudes and ex-pectations about children differing from them-selves that are inconsistent with fostering so-cial integration . The extent to which these ini-tial expectations are altered by state-of-the-artinclusive practices and by contemporary ex-periences with children with disabilities inpreschool settings and in the community toestablish a new level of social integration re-mains a critical question for the future.

Despite the association likely to exist be-tween these ecological factors and social in-tegration outcomes, only limited experimen-tally-based information is available on thismatter. Moreover, how these factors might af-fect the various dimensions of social integra-tion identified in this paper has not been ad-dressed . It is quite possible that instances ofovert rejection and even certain aspects of ex-clusionary patterns directed toward childrenwith developmental delays can be alteredthrough changes in the larger ecology . Wheth-er friendship patterns between children withand without delays can be altered by thosesame factors is clearly a far more difficult is-sue. Indeed, despite recognizing many poten-tial advantages of inclusive settings, parents

of children with disabilities continue to ex-press concerns related to possible rejection oftheir child (Bailey & Winton, 1987 ; Gural-nick, 1994; Guralnick et al., 1995) . Of partic-ular concern is that their child's own behaviormay contribute to this rejection in the pre-school setting (Guralnick et al ., 1995) . In thefollowing section, this and related issues areconsidered in the context of a more child-ori-ented focus to promote social integration.

Child-Oriented ApproachesA primary reason why altering friendship pat-terns or the extent to which diverse groups ofchildren engage in more extended play epi-sodes is likely to be most difficult is due tothe fact that children's selection of play part-ners is generally based on common interests,abilities, experiences, and interaction styles(e .g ., Rubin, Lynch, Coplan, Rose-Krasnor, &Booth, 1994) . Unfortunately, it has been welldocumented that even children with mild de-velopmental delays manifest peer-related so-cial interaction difficulties that extend beyondthose expected on the basis of their develop-mental level (e .g ., Guralnick & Groom, 1987;Guralnick & Weinhouse, 1984) . These socialcompetence problems are apparent even in in-clusive settings. Accordingly, it is possiblethat these unusual peer interaction difficultiesserve to limit the degree to which social in-tegration occurs with typically developingchronological age mates.

The reasons for the peer-related social com-petence problems characteristic of childrenwith mild developmental delays are not fullyknown . Their more limited social experienceswith peers, especially the relative absence ofmore in-depth relationships with typically de-veloping children in home and communitysettings both prior to and during the preschoolyears, may be partially responsible (Gural-nick, 1997a; Stoneman, 1993) . In addition,greater difficulties in regulating emotions dur-ing play with peers (Guralnick et al ., 1998;Guralnick & Paul-Brown, 1989), or with re-gard to specific social-cognitive processes(Guralnick, 1992) are possible explanations.Children with developmental delays strugglewith the important social tasks of peer group

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entry, resolving conflicts, and maintainingplay . More limited language abilities is anoth-er alternative (even when controlling for de-velopmental level), although language level atthis age within subgroups of mildly delayedchildren is not a strong correlate of peer-re-lated social competence (e .g ., Guralnick et al .,1996a).

Consequently, child-oriented interventionprograms that can successfully foster the peer-related social competence of children withmild developmental delays may serve to re-duce the degree of social separation observedin inclusive settings . Unfortunately, it hasbeen remarkably difficult to achieve sustainedand generalizable changes in the peer-relatedsocial competence of children with disabilities(e .g ., Odom, McConnell, & McEvoy, 1992).It is likely that a comprehensive child-focusedapproach involving school, family, and com-munity components will be needed to achievemeaningful outcomes (Guralnick & Neville,1997).

A GENERAL MODEL OFINFLUENCES ON SOCIALINTEGRATION

All children bring to a social setting, such asan inclusive preschool, a set of social inter-action skills, specific interests in certain socialand nonsocial activities, expectations that oth-ers share their rule systems, a certain level towhich they are willing to accept or overlookunexpected or even inappropriate behavior intheir peers, and a respect for varying degreesof individual differences . In turn, these pat-terns reflect prior or ongoing experiences withpeers and family members, especially parentalbeliefs, attitudes, and behaviors and, ofcourse, their own unique social abilities . Ininclusive preschool settings, from the perspec-tive of typically developing children, the de-gree to which children with mild developmen-tal delays (at any level of peer-related socialcompetence) are socially integrated will de-pend upon these factors as well as specific ex-periences in the environment of the inclusivesetting itself.

Figure 1 attempts to depict these complex

interrelationships as they might influence thethree social integration constructs identified inthis paper as assessed in free-play situations.As illustrated in the model, the ultimate de-gree to which children with developmental de-lays, or perhaps children with disabilities ingeneral, experience social integration in pre-school settings is dependent upon four mainfactors . First are expectations with respect toestablishing potential social relationships withchildren with disabilities by typically devel-oping children that occur prior to participationin inclusive settings . These expectations areformed through yet little understood processeswhich transmit attitudes by parents and otherfamily members toward people with disabili-ties, through a more general family atmo-sphere regarding acceptance and even celebra-tion of diversity, and specific experiences withchildren (or people in general) with disabili-ties (see Prior Expectations in Figure 1).These specific experiences with individualswith disabilities are often arranged, or fail tobe arranged as the case may be, by parents.As a consequence, there is likely to be a highcorrelation among the three components of"prior expectations ." Not indicated in themodel in Figure 1 are the overarching societalattitudes and beliefs and associated practicesthat can affect the three components of priorexpectations . Clearly, as these larger ecologi-cal factors serve to encourage more positiveattitudes and increase the likelihood of contactwith children with disabilities, prior expecta-tions will be influenced.

Second, these prior expectations are subjectto modification through more contemporaryexperiences between children with and with-out disabilities in the home or community . Ex-periences occurring in the context of recrea-tional, religious, or family organized socialevents that involve children with disabilitieshave the potential to modify these prior ex-pectations . Most often, however, these priorexpectations continue to exert their influenceover time . They not only affect contemporaryexperiences in home and community, but maywell affect whether parents select an inclusivepreschool setting for their child in the firstplace . Similarly, these prior experiences of

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Figure 1.A model depicting factors that influence social integration during free-play situations in inclusivepreschool settings.

typically developing children may influencethe actual social experiences that occur withchildren with disabilities in an inclusive pre-school setting, including those that occur dur-ing free-play situations . These influences ontypically developing children by prior expec-tations and by contemporary experiences arelikely to be felt most strongly during the earlyphases of the inclusive preschool experience,but also may be subject to modification overtime.

Accordingly, the third main factor influenc-ing social integration consists of children's ex-periences in the inclusive preschool setting.The experiences of typically developing chil-dren in particular with children with disabili-ties may serve to modify negative prior ex-pectations and will likely succeed in trans-forming children with more benign sets of ex-pectations, but outcomes will depend on thequality of inclusive practices . Except for themost extreme prior expectations by typicallydeveloping children, it is here that teacher at-titudes and behaviors, innovative curricula,and other practices can exert some degree ofinfluence on social integration evaluated in thefree-play setting . Important programmatic fac-

tors that can alter social integration outcomeshave been identified previously (Guralnick,1981b), and can serve as a framework forevaluating social integration (Buysse & Bai-ley, 1993).

The model further suggests (see double-headed arrow) the possibility of reciprocal in-fluences between contemporary experiences inhome and community settings and those oc-curring in the inclusive preschool setting.Friendships do indeed appear to be formed be-tween children with disabilities and typicallydeveloping chronological-age mates in inclu-sive preschools which extend to the commu-nity (Guralnick et al ., 1995) . However, thoselinkages and perhaps the strength of the rela-tionship as well are not as well developed forchildren with developmental delays (and like-ly children with other disabilities) in compar-ison to typically developing children (Gural-nick, 1997a) . Moreover, parents report thatonly a small percentage of their typically de-veloping children have friends with a disabil-ity (Guralnick, 1997a) . An interesting and po-tentially important path of influence, one notdepicted in the model, is whether contempo-rary experiences in the inclusive preschool,

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home, and community alter parental attitudestoward diversity in general and to childrenwith disabilities in particular.

The final factor that can influence social in-tegration focuses exclusively on children withdisabilities . As noted earlier, it has been dif-ficult to develop successful intervention pro-grams to enhance children's peer-related so-cial competence, and insufficient resources aredevoted to social development issues in pre-school programs (Michnowicz, McConnell,

Peterson, & Odom, 1995) . New approachesthat consider the larger developmental-ecolog-

ical contexts are emerging, however, and areattempting to address school, family, andcommunity aspects of children's peer-relatedsocial development and social integration(Guralnick & Neville, 1997) . As reflected inthe figure, these interventions may enhancethe general social experiences and social com-petence of a child with a disability throughhighly specialized child-oriented programs de-signed for both the early childhood inclusivesetting and the child's family and community.Should these interventions prove to be effec-tive, there is every reason to expect to realizesubstantial improvements in social integrationin preschool settings as evaluated in free-play

situations.Taken together, these four factors combine

to influence the three constructs and related

dimensions of social integration that havebeen described in this paper. As discussed, acoherent and robust body of evidence is avail-able that adequately characterizes and pro-vides a realistic portrayal of the social inte-gration patterns of children with mild devel-opmental delays with typically developingchronological age mates in inclusive settings.The extent to which these social integration

patterns can be altered by any of the four fac-tors in the model remains a vital question forthe future . To be sure, there exist overarchingecological forces related to societal values,

economic conditions, legal and legislativechanges, or organizational issues that can af-fect each of these factors, particularly priorexpectations . However, whatever the nature ofthese prevailing forces may be, social integra-tion may benefit more from direct and con-

centrated efforts on the three current factorsrelated to home and community experienceswith people with disabilities, the inclusivepreschool setting, and interventions directedtoward children with disabilities to improvetheir peer-related social competence . It is thisactivist agenda, carried out within a develop-mental ecological model and analyzed acrossthe three social integration constructs identi-fied in this paper that may provide a usefulframework for future research on the natureand meaning of social integration for childrenwith disabilities.

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