How Young Children Evaluate People With and Without Disabilities

Abstract

How do preschool-age children evaluate people with disabilities, and does social contact make children more positive toward those who are different from them? To answer these questions, typically developing 3- to 5-year-old children completed tasks designed to measure their social preferences for, and judgments about the actions of, unfamiliar individuals with and without disabilities. Participants preferred pictures of typically developing children over children in wheelchairs, but did not prefer children who were described with disabilities over those who were described with mildly negative facts. In a third task, participants evaluated actions that violated norms more negatively than those that did not, regardless of whether the actors had a disability. Children's participation in inclusion programs did not appear to affect their responses. We consider possible explanations for children's responses - including the absence of social contact effects - in the discussion.

Keywords: Attitudes; Contact Hypothesis; Disabilities; Norms; Preferences.

Figure 1

Example displays from the Visible Preference (a) and Norm Violation tasks (b, c).