Dispute Patterns in Children: an Investigation of Social Competence.

Language disordered children frequently demonstrate social problems. It is not known whether they have social competence deficits in addition to their linguistic deficits or whether their social problems are a consequence of their linguistic deficits. To address this question, social behaviors must be examined within clearly defined social events that can be verbally and /or nonverbally mediated. One such event is the dispute. Disputes are rule-governed social units, with specific goals, that can be verbally and /or nonverbally mediated. The disputes of two language disordered subjects, a boy and a girl, were examined. Results of this study demonstrated that in addition to the effects of linguistic deficits on their participation in disputes, social skill deficits were also present. Although the subjects in this study demonstrated that they understood the social violations of others, they were unable to make socially appropriate decisions about their own violation behaviors. Excessive physical aggression on the part of one subject characterized his violation behaviors. Further analysis demonstrated that while disputes occurred following his use of physical aggression, few of these aggressive acts were intentional on his part. Regardless of his intent, however, both normal language and language disordered partners reacted similarly, using threats and yelling. The second subject, did not enter disputes at all with normal language partners, even when it was appropriate to do so. While she had the linguistic competence that would have enabled her to verbally participate in disputes, her refusal to dispute suggests social incompetence. When disputes were initiated by her normal language partners she withdrew from their violations rather than reacting, demonstrating use of an alternate maladaptive social strategy. Although this strategy was more acceptable in the classroom, it isolated the subject from the mutual learning environment that accompanies conflict resolution. Effects of friendship and gender were also examined. While friendship status did not appear to be a major factor in the types of disputes that occurred, gender effects were present. Both are significant in the disputes of normal language children.PhDSpeech therapyUniversity of Michiganhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/161566/1/8720307.pd