Promoting Prosocial Behaviours Among Preschool Children With and Without Disabilities

A multiple probe across subjects design was used to evaluate the effectiveness of an intervention program on promoting prosocial behaviours among preschool children with and without disabilities. The intervention was carried out with three integrated groups of children, each comprised of one child with a disability and two peers without disabilities, created from three mainstreamed preschool classrooms. The intervention was successful in promoting increases in positive social interactions among the children with disabilities and their peers without disabilities. For two of the three groups the children with disabilities engaged in an equal or greater percentage of positive social initiations than their peers without disabilities. Increases in positive social responses to positive social initiations were similar for children with and without disabilities. Intervention phase behavioural changes generalised to both immediate group conditions, but did not generalise to deferred classroom conditions. Variability of response to intervention across groups highlights the need to develop and implement interventions on an individualised basis. The results indicate that further research is needed regarding the promotion of deferred generalisation effects as well as understanding the effects that trainer presence may have on the generalisation of the targeted social behaviours. There is also a need for the investigation of the potential for gender‐related effects including differential activity levels, ability for sustained attention, and group composition.