Tony Apolloni

Integrated Settings at the Early Childhood Level: The Role of Nonretarded Peers

Recent trends toward early intervention and mainstreaming have resulted in a growing number of preschool programs that integrate retarded and nonretarded children. These programs are generally based on the assumption that nonhandicapped peers function as behavioral models and/or reinforcing agents for handicapped youngsters within the context of positive social interaction. However, a review of relevant empirical literature indicates that such benefits do not necessarily result from integrated programing. This article discusses the implications of recent studies that have investigated procedures for structuring peer imitation and peer reinforcement at the preschool age level. Specific suggestions are offered for maximizing the potential benefits of integrated early childhood programs. Additionally, recommendations are made concerning research needs in this area.

Handicapped preschool children in the mainstream: background, outcomes, and clinical suggestions

not accomplish all the goals of mainstreaming (Semmel, Gottlieb, & Robinson, 1979; Snyder, Apolloni, & Cooke, 1977). Thus, a small number of researchers have begun to pursue the formulation of an empirically validated instructional technology for use in integrated preschool classrooms. Unfortunately, few have reported their research strategies and findings in sufficient technological detail to permit replication. Central to many of the instructional techniques demonstrated in integrated settings has been the mechanism of peer imitation (Apolloni, Cooke, & Cooke, 1977; Cooke, Cooke, &

Normal Preschool Children as Behavioral Models for Retarded Peers

Increasing numbers of current day programs for preschool retarded children offer integrated programing alternatives (Wynne, Ulfelder, & Dakof, 1975). Integrated programing refers to arrangements wherein retarded and nonretarded children attend school together and share in many varieties of social, affective, and educational interaction. Such less restricted environments have been thought to produce increased opportunity for more normalized social learning as well as providing occasion for retarded children to learn from imitating more developmentally sophisticated children (Warfield, 1974). However, recent observational studies of integrated preschool settings indicate little cross group positive interaction or imitation between integrated groups of retarded and nonretarded toddlers (Porter, Ramsey, Tremblay, Iaccobo, & Crawley, in press; Ray, 1974) or preschool age children under naturalistic conditions (Devoney, Guralnick, & Rubin, 1974; Curalnick, 1976). These findings challenge widely held beliefs in the peer interaction benefits of integrated educational settings for young children.

Utilization of Peer Imitation in Therapeutic and Instructional Contexts

The importance of imitation in the social development of young children has been so widely emphasized as to become axiomatic in the literature of psychology and education (Baer & Sherman, 1964; Bandura & Walters, 1963; Gewirtz & Stingle, 1968; N.E. Miller & Dollard, 1941; Mowrer, 1960; R.F. Peterson, 1968; Piaget, 1951). Recently, increased attention has been directed toward investigating the role of peer imitation during early childhood (Apolloni & Cooke, 1975; Hartup, 1970,1978). Much of this work has been motivated by a conceptualization of peer imitation as a potentially powerful instructional resource which educators have yet to fully utilize in a systematic manner (Guralnick, 1976; Snyder, Apolloni, & Cooke, 1977). Peer imitation may be valuable along both quantitative and qualitative dimensions. Quantitatively speaking, it is clear that utilizing children as teachers represents a means of increasing the available instructional personnel in the classroom (V.L. Allen, 1976). Qualitatively, there is evidence that under some conditions children may be more effective instructional models than adults (Barry & Overman, 1977; Becker & Glid-den, 1979; Nordquist, 1978; Rubenstein & Howes, 1976). The purpose of our chapter will be to delineate the major findings of the basic and developmental research on peer imitation, and to review the efforts of several researchers, including ourselves, to develop therapeutic techniques based on peer imitation for use in instructional contexts. Additionally, we will suggest further steps in the development of an instructional technology based on peer imitation, and relate the importance of such a technology to current trends in educational-service delivery.