Do My Reactions Outweigh My Actions? The Relation between Reactive and Proactive Aggression with Peer Acceptance in Preschoolers.

Aggressive behaviors negatively impact peer relations starting from an early age. However, not all aggressive acts have the same underlying motivations. Reactive aggression arises as a response to an antecedent behavior of someone else, whereas proactive aggression is initiated by the aggressor and is instrumental. In this study, we aim to understand the relation between reactive and proactive aggression and peer acceptance in preschoolers. Parents of 110 children aged between 3 and 6 years old rated their children's manifestation of reactive and proactive aggressive behaviors. To assess the children's peer acceptance score within their class, they completed a paired comparisons task. The outcomes confirmed that reactive aggression in particular is negatively related to peer acceptance at the preschool age. Our results provide insights for the needs and directions of future research and interventions.

Being Deaf in Mainstream Schools: The Effect of a Hearing Loss in Children's Playground Behaviors.

Naturalistic playground observations are a rich source of information when studying the social interactions of preschool children. On the playground, children can interact with their peers, explore different places and activities, and engage in different types of play. For deaf and hard of hearing (DHH) children, interactions at a playground can be more difficult because of the large number of auditory stimuli surrounding them. Constraints in the access to the social world on the playground might hamper DHH children's interactions with their typically hearing (TH) peers, activities, and play. This pilot study aimed to examine the playground behaviors of preschool DHH children across three aspects: social levels, type of activities, and play choices. For this purpose, 12 preschool DHH children were observed during recess time, and their behaviors were coded and compared to their 85 TH peers. The preliminary findings indicate that DHH children spend less time in social interactions compared to their TH peers and that they still face difficulties when socially engaging with their TH peers. These findings suggest that interventions should focus on three aspects: the physical environment awareness of TH peers about communicating with DHH children, and the use of exercise play to facilitate social interactions between DHH children and their TH peers.

Friendship and Emotion Control in Pre-Adolescents With or Without Hearing Loss.

Emotional functioning plays a crucial role in the social development of children and adolescents. We examined the extent to which emotion control was related to the quality of friendships in pre-adolescents with and without hearing loss. We tested 350 pre-adolescents (75 deaf/hard of hearing in mainstream education (DHHm), 48 deaf/hard of hearing in special education (DHHs), and 227 hearing) through self-report. Outcomes confirmed a positive association between emotion control and positive friendships for all groups, with one notable exception: more approach strategies for emotion regulation were associated with more negative friendship features in the DHHs group. In addition, the DHHm group demonstrated high levels of emotion control, while their levels of positive friendship features were still lower compared to the hearing group.