Research review: Peer buddies
Simone Geller
Azrieli Graduate School of Jewish Education & Administration
Yeshiva University
Research review: Peer buddies
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Within schools that encourage inclusivism, children with autism (CWA) often find
themselves without friends. They experience low peer acceptance, companionship and
reciprocity (Campbell & Marino, 2009, p. 1359). In response to this social isolation, various
interventions have been established, such as the use of peer buddies. Generally, a teacher
selects a peer buddy who is strong academically, regularly attends school, and will comply
with the teacher’s requests. Researchers have found that teachers choose classmates who
are popular and self-confident.
Generally, peers are not involved in the selection of peer buddies, and teachers’
choices often do not coincide with what peers would have chosen. Little is known about
the thought in this area, so the study by Campbell and Marino in “Brief report: Sociometric
status and behavioral characteristics of peer nominated buddies for a child with autism”
explores the social and behavioral characteristics that peers use to select peer buddies for
children with autism. In addition, the study seeks to learn if these choices would be
different for peer buddies for typical children.
Campbell and Marino expected that the peer buddies chosen by peers for children
with autism would be classmates who are popular and socially skilled. They also
hypothesized that peer buddy nominations for CWA would not differ than those for typical
children.
In this study, 293 third-, fourth- and fifth-graders were chosen from 15 regular
education classrooms. Each child filled out a nomination of social status, behavioral
characteristics and social influence using rosters of participating classmates. They
nominated the three classmates they like to play with the most and three they like to play
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with the least. They nominated three classmates they believed were most popular at
school, and three they thought were least popular.
They were then shown a videotape of a typical 12-year-old boy actor named Robby.
Afterwards, they watched a second tape of the same child displaying symptoms of autism
associated with lower functioning individuals, including gaze aversion, hand flapping,
immediate echolalia and body rocking. The children were told after each video that Robby
might be joining their class.
The actor had a sibling with autism and had been asked to portray symptoms often
displayed by his brother. He was determined to have been a realistic actor. After each
videotape, students were asked: “Who would you pick as a buddy to help this child fit in
with the other kids in your class?”
Regarding the child without autism, popular children received more peer buddy
nominations. Unpopular students were chosen to be peer buddies to the version of Robby
with autism. “Helpful,” “smart” and “self-confident” were behavioral characteristics that
appeared as significant predictors for peer buddies of both types, but peer buddies for the
autistic Robby were also described as “liked least” and “least popular.” Peer buddy
nominations for the typical Robby were children generally described as “liked most,” “cool”
and “influential.”
When reviewing the results, Campbell and Marino discussed that the peer buddy
nominations were mostly male, which they had expected given the strong same-gender
preference that students show in middle childhood (Campbell & Marino, 2009, 1361).
Popular children were chosen by their peers to be buddies with the non-autistic child,
while unpopular ones were chosen to buddy with the autistic boy. Nominations for both
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the autistic and non-autistic child were driven by prosocial characteristics, such as showing
concern and being helpful toward others. The elementary students’ selection for the
autistic boy “[did] not appear to be conducive to fostering widespread peer acceptance”
(Campbell & Marino, 2009, ibid). The authors of the study believe that there are two
reasons for this. Firstly, children at this age report negative initial attitudes towards
unfamiliar peers with autism, and they may associate these feelings with unpopular peers
in their class. Secondly, it may be that children wish to create relationships with others
who seem similar to them. The task given to the children in this study was to identify
which students would help Robby “fit in” to their class, so the students may have
characterized autistic Robby as someone who is more similar to those who are unpopular
and feel marginalized in the classroom. They may have been identifying a social niche for
Robby.
The students in the experiment were never told that autistic Robby is autistic. As
Campbell and Marino explain, “A final limitation [in our study] involves our lack of
manipulation check regarding whether children understood that the child viewed in the
[autistic] condition was portraying symptoms of autism” (Campbell & Marino, 2009, 1362).
I wonder how the children would have reacted to the autistic child if they had known that
he had autism; sometimes, identifying the condition helps others respond to it more
positively.
This model can be widely applied in other settings, Jewish and otherwise. Whether
or not the children knew that Robby in the second video was displaying characteristics of
autism, the fact remains that middle childhood can be a time of social acceptance and
rejection. Most children are easily swayed by the choice of the popular child, and all
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children wish to be associated with being “cool.” This can cause great problems during
these years. This experiment displays how these feelings of social acceptance and isolation
play out in one particular instance, but it is possible to generalize that most elementary
schools act in this way. Many children in middle childhood have mental lists of who is
popular and who is unpopular, and Jewish day school teachers need to help our children
refocus on Jewish values. We need to teach lessons of derech eretz and v’ahavta l’reiacha
kamocha.
In addition, perhaps post high-school yeshivot can learn from this study. Many
yeshivot have a peer buddy program in which the students who participate are called
tze’irim (younger students) and mevugarim (older students). Students who have been in
the yeshiva for at least one year (mevugarim) are paired by the administration with
incoming students (tze’irim) to help them acculturate to the yeshiva. Oftentimes the pair
learns b’chevruta to establish an ongoing relationship. Administrations of these yeshivot
must be conscious of the behavior and characteristics of the mevugarim they choose for the
tze’irim, so that no social isolation occurs as a result of this peer buddy system. While
students in yeshivot are well beyond middle childhood, some of the same social behaviors
can occur. We need to focus our education towards teaching lessons of acceptance and
tolerance, so that in our Jewish institutions, everyone will feel included.
Reference for this paper:
Campbell, J. M., & Marino, C. A. (2009). Brief report: Sociometric status and behavioral
characteristics of peer nominated buddies for a child with autism. Journal of Autism
and Developmental Disorders, 39(9), 1359-1363.
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References
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education: Perspectives of participants in a high school peer support program.
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Teaching Exceptional Children, 35(1), 16-21.
Harper, C. B., Symon, J. B., & Frea, W. D. (2008). Recess is time-in: Using peers to improve
social skills of children with autism. Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders,
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Hughes, C., Guth, C., Hall, S., & Presley, J. (1999). "They are my best friends": Peer buddies
promote inclusion in high school. Teaching Exceptional Children, 31(5), 32-38.
Jackson, J. N., & Campbell, J. M. (2009). Teachers' peer buddy selections for children with
autism: Social characteristics and relationship with peer nominations. Journal of
Autism and Developmental Disorders, 39(2), 269-277.