Children’s Understanding of Their Emotionally Disturbed Peers

Abstract

Study of the interpersonal relations of emotionally disturbed children has focused largely on relationships within the family. Theories of childhood psychopathology focus almost exclusively on the parent-child triad as the etiological core of childhood emotional disturbance (Frank, 1965). Far less attention has been paid to the role of extra-familial attitudes and relationships in childhood psychopathology. In a general way, the increasing importance of the peer group during childhood has been recognized, but researchers have hardly begun to consider whether and how the manifold aspects of relationships between the emotionally disturbed and their normal peers might bear on the course of the disturbance or its refractoriness to treatment (e.g., Solomon and Wahler, 1973). Nor have they considered peer group influences on the development of the emotionally disturbed child's perception of the world and his place within it. Despite increasing recognition of the early importance of peer relations, virtually no systematic information exists on the ways in which normal children view their emotionally disturbed peers. Our purpose in this paper is to report the first of several analyses of data from an initial investigation of children's understanding of their emotionally disturbed peers. Specifically, we wish to examine whether there is evidence that normal children do, in fact, perceive as emotionally disturbed the symptomatic and distressing behavior of peers that mental health professionals would recognize as indicative of psychopathology. Further, we wish to study these issues with respect to grade and sex differences.