Elementary school children’s willingness to help and be friends with disabled peers

The school inclusion of children with disability can create negative reactions in classmates unless educators and teachers implement specific intervention aimed at enhancing the disabled child's social integration. Identifying what factors can facilitate or impede inclusion therefore represents an essential first step toward developing effective programs. The present study interviewed 160 children, aged 6 through 11 years, who were asked to respond to two questions concerning their willingness to be friends with and to help a child with physical or intellectual disability. One-half of the participants then received additional information about the classmate's needs. It was thought that this information would heighten the participants' perceptions of a greater risk of involvement with the disabled peer. A repeated-measures MANOVA was run, with the dependent variables of friendship, helping, and type of ability and with the independent variables of risk/no-risk condition and participant age. The results clearly showed that children were more willing to help than be friends with a disabled classmate and felt more well-inclined toward their peers with physical disability, vs. intellectual disability. These effects interacted with the children's age and their perception of risk of involvement in the relationship.