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Interpersonal problem solving in preschool children: A comparison of assessment procedures using two-dimensional versus three-dimensional stimuli
JOURNAL
OF APPLIED
DEVELOPMENTAL
PSYCHOLOGY
5,
293-304
(1984)
Interpersonal Problem Solving in Preschool Children: A Comparison of Assessment Procedures Using Two-Dimensional versus Three-Dimensional Stimuli* JOSEPH A. GETZ Polyclinic Medical Center
JANE A. GOLDMAN
AND DAVID A. CORSINI
University of Connecticut Two procedures for assessing the social problem-solving strategies of young children were compared: a traditional meosure using pictorial stimuli and an altemotive measure in which problems were presented using three-dimension01 props. Subjeck were 48 preschool children ages 3, 4, and 5. Using a counterbalanced, repeated measures design, the two tasks were presented to the children on consecutive days. Children also received the PPVT, and teacher ratings of behoviorol adjustment were completed. Children gove more responses and suggested a greater voriety of problem-solving strotegies when tested with props than when tested with pictures. Response differences to the two testing procedures were greatest far children who were rated by their teachers as impulsive. Results ore discussed in terms of the representational competence of the preschool child. Implications of the findings for intervention strategies olso are discussed.
In recent years there has been an escalating interest in the interpersonal competence and social adjustment of preschool children. Interest in these issues has come from two sources. One is the attempt of evaluators assessing the effects of early childhood intervention programs to find an alternative to IQ as a measure of competence (Zigler & Trickett, 1978). The second is the literature indicating that signs of early social maladjustment are found in the developmental histories of juvenile delin-
*This report is based on a Masters thesis submitted by the first author to the Graduate School of the University of Connecticut. We gratefully acknowledge the help of Susan Dudek who served as the observer and helped to code the transcripts. We also would like to thank the directors, teachers, and children at Community Children’s Center, Mansfield Day Care Center, and the University of Connecticut Child Development Laboratories for their interest and cooperation. Portions of the paper were presented at the biennial meeting of the Society for Research in Child Development, Detroit, 1983. Correspondence and requests for reprints should be sent to Jane A. Goldman, Human Development Center, Box U-l 17, University of Connecticut, Storm, CT 06268.
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quents and maladjusted adults (Cowen, Pederson, Babigian, Izzo, & Trost, 1973; Roff, Sells, & Golden, 1972). Given this growing awareness of the importance of social competence, attention has been focused on both the conceptual and operational definitions of social competence (Greenspan, 1980). Although there are many issues involved in defining the components of social competence, one component that has been conceptually identified and operationally defined has been the ability to generate alternative solutions to hypothetical interpersonal problem situations. The present study concerns the measurement of this aspect of social competence in preschool children. In the pioneering work in this area, Spivack and Shure (1974) developed the Preschool Interpersonal Problem Solving Test (PIPS) as a measure of the child’s ability to generate solutions to social problems. In various studies, Shure, Spivack, and associates have shown the PIPS to differentiate between children rated by teachers as adjusted, inhibited, and impulsive, and changes in PIPS scores have been noted for children receiving social skills training (Shure & Spivack, 1980; Spivack, Platt, & Shure, 1976). However, both Sharp (1981) and Krasnor and Rubin (1981) have failed to find relationships between PIPS scores and behavioral observations in the classroom. These results caution against uncritical acceptance of the PIPS and point to the need for further study of its psychometric properties. One criticism of the PIPS test concerns the stimulus format and response demands made on the child. When taking the PIPS, the child is presented with verbal vignettes that are accompanied by pictures illustrating the respective problems, and the child is asked to verbalize solutions to the problems. However, this mode of presentation, which relies on pictures and words, does not take into account the representational competence of the preschool child. Knowledge for the preschool child is action based. For this age group, neither words nor pictures are as effective as action in facilitating thought (Bruner, 1964; Sigel, 1970). The child development research literature provides repeated demonstrations that three-dimensional stimuli are more effective than either words or two-dimensional stimuli in allowing preschool children to show their competence (Cocking & McHale,. 1981; Corsini, 1969; Goodnow, 1969; Huttenlocher & Strauss, 1968; Sigel & McBane, 1967). This literature also demonstrates the importance of allowing children to express their responses through nonverbal as well as verbal modes (Cocking & McHale, 1981; Corsini, 1969). The present study describes the development of a test for assessing the preschool child’s knowledge of alternative solutions to social problems that takes into account information derived from this research. In order to evaluate the efficacy of incorporating procedures that take into account the representational competence of preschool children, a testing format using three-dimensional stimuli was compared to a format using the typical two-dimensional stimuli. A second criticism of the PIPS has been that it taps a limited range of interpersonal problems. The PIPS asks the child to reason about only two types of problems: (a) a child wants to play with a toy that another child has; and (b) a child wants to avoid angering his/her mother after having damaged some property. In the
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present study, which focuses on peer relations, the child is presented with a wider range of interpersonal problem situations. A third issue concerning the PIPS has to do with the significance of the quantity versus the quality of the solutions offered by the children. Spivack and Shure (1974; Spivack, Platt, & Shure, 1976) have argued that it is primarily the quantity of alternatives generated that is the important element. However, Asher, Markell, and Hymel (1981) and Sharp (1983) have argued that it is the quality of response alternatives that is important in differentiating between interpersonally skillful and problemed children. Hence, in the present study both qualitative and quantitative aspects of the response alternatives were assessed. Thus, the purpose of the present study was to develop a test for assessing the preschool child’s ability to generate solutions to hypothetical interpersonal problem situations. A major question of the study concerned the relative effectiveness of using three-dimensional props versus two-dimensional pictures as stimuli. In addition to comparing the responsiveness of children when tested with props versus pictures, the new test, which was an extension of the PIPS test developed by Shure and Spivack, differed from the PIPS in the following ways: A broader range of social problem situations familiar to young children was sampled; children were allowed to “show” as well as “tell” solutions; and children were encouraged to give multiple solutions to each problem (Krasnor & Rubin, 1981). The children’s responses to the new test were interpreted in terms of content as well as quantity. Finally, responses were examined in relationship to teacher ratings of behavioral adjustment and to scores on the Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test. METHODS
Subjects Participants included 48 preschool children ages 3, 4, and 5 years, with 8 boys and 8 girls at each age level. Mean ages were 43.5 months, 54.3 months, and 66.3 months for the 3- 4- and 5-year-olds, respectively. Children attended one of three day care centers in a semirural New England university community. The children were from a variety of cultural backgrounds, but all were fluent in English. Most children were from student or professional families.
Social Problem Alternatives Task The Social Problem Alternatives Task (SPAT) was developed to assess the preschool child’s ability to generate alternative solutions to interpersonal conflict situations with peers. For both the picture and prop versions of the SPAT, the child was presented with four interpersonal conflict situations. These problems were selected from a list of problem situations developed through interviews with preschool children and their teachers. The four problem situations were: 1. Desire for possession of an object possessed by another-A child wants to play with a toy (airplane/bike) that another child has been playing with for a long
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time. (This is the situation presented by Shure and Spivack (1974) in the peer section of the PIPS); 2. Limited resources-A child reaches a desired toy (swing/wagon) at exactly the same time as another child who also wishes to play with the toy; 3. Involuntary loss of a desired possession-A child has the toy (ball/blocks) he/she is playing with taken away by another child; 4. Territorial conflict-A child desires to play/sit in a place (sandbox/snack table) that is already occupied. There is no room for the child. For the picture condition, drawings of the children in each vignette were presented on 5” by 8” cards and drawings of the objects on 3” by 5” cards. These drawings were modeled after those used in the PIPS. For the prop condition, FisherPrice people and appropriate toys and objects were used. For each situation the problem was presented to the child, and the child was asked to think of as many solutions as he/she could to resolve the problem. A typical instruction was: “This is Alex and this is Harry. Alex has been playing with this airplane for a long time. Harry would like a turn with the airplane, but Alex is still playing with it. Can you show me or tell me what Harry can do so that he can have a turn with the airplane?” In order to help overcome any possible social desirability set, children were encouraged to think of both “good” and “bad” things the children in the stories could do. Instructions given with pictures and props were the same, except that the examiner said “show or tell me” when using the props and said only “tell me” when using the pictures.
Behavioral Adjustment Rating Scale The Hahnemann Pre-School Behavior Rating Scale developed by Shure and Spivack (1971) was used in this study, with two items added. The Hahnemann scale consists of seven items (such as, physically aggressive, easily upset by peers) that are believed indicative of poor social adjustment. The two items developed for this study rated conflict (“gets into conflicts with other children”) and social problem solving (“when involved in a conflict situation with another child he/she has difficulty solving the problem in a ‘socially acceptable’ manner”). Following procedures described by Shure and Spivack, each behavior was rated on a scale of 1 to 9, with 1 indicating “less than the average child,” and 9 indicating “much more than average. ’ ’
Procedure The study involved
a counterbalanced repeated measures design with each child serving as his or her own control. Children were assigned randomly to the two orders of task presentation, with the stipulation that half of the boys and half of the girls in each age group received the picture task first, and half received the prop task first. For the prop condition, the four problem situations were presented to each child in a predetermined random order. Situations for the picture tasks were present-
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ed in an independently determined random order. Because each child received the SPAT on two occasions, two scenarios were developed for each problem situation. These scenarios (which are indicated in the task descriptions) were also randomly assigned to the prop versus picture conditions for each child. The two conditions were presented in sessions that were at least one day apart. An observer, who was present in the room, recorded both the verbal and nonverbal responses made by the child. Each interview also was tape recorded. Prior to the testing on the social problem-solving tasks, each child received the PPVT (Dunn, 1965; Form B). All testing was done by a male graduate student who had 2 years experience as a preschool teacher and had spent an extended period of time in each classroom before testing was begun. During this time he was able to establish an unusually fine degree of rapport with the children. After testing was completed, classroom teachers were asked to fill out a behavioral adjustment rating scale for each child.
Scoring Social Problem Alternatives Test. Transcripts of the children’s responses were made from the audio tapes and the notes of the observer. Responses were categorized as verbal only, nonverbal only, or both verbal and nonverbal. 1 For the purpose of analyses, the verbal-only and verbal/nonverbal categories were combined and called verbal. Each response also was coded according to the behavioral strategy suggested. Eleven categories, based on those developed by Asher and Renshaw (1981), were used: Sharing, Taking turns, Telling an authority, Verbal requests, Playing tricks on the other child, Target child submits (e.g., finds something else to do, waits until the other child is finished), Other child submits or complies, Interfering with the play of the other child (e.g., grabbing), Physical aggression against the other child, Relevant other (e.g., the “tester” could take the other child out of the room), and Ambiguous. Two scorers scored 25% of the responses and obtained 92% agreement for categorizing the responses. Behavioral Adjustment Rating Scale. The children in this study primarily were well-adjusted children from families who were not under serious economic stress. The preschool programs they attended were well staffed by teachers oriented to helping children with their personal and social adjustment. Given these conditions, there were not many children who could be described as atypically inhibited or impulsive. Following procedures developed by Shure and Spivack (1971), children who received a rating of 1 or 2 (inhibited, timid, fearful) on three or more of the nine behavior items were categorized as Inhibited. Children who received no ratings of 1 or 2 and had an average rating across the nine items of 6.5 or greater were categorized as Impulsive. All other children were categorized as Average. ‘Although in the picture condition children were asked to “tell” nonverbal responses (i.e., manipulating the pictures). These manipulations responses.
a solution, they also gave were scored as non-verbal
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GETZ,
Using these criteria, 5 children remaining 36 as Average.
GOLDMAN,
AND CORSINI
were rated as Inhibited,
7 as Impulsive,
and the
RESULTS
Mode of Presentation A major question raised in this investigation concerned the effect of mode of presentation on the preschool child’s ability to generate alternative solutions to social problem situations. Statistical analyses were performed to assess the effect of mode of presentation on both total number of solutions given and number of different strategies mentioned. For each of these questions, a 2 (sex) X 3 (age) X 2 (order of presentation) X 2 (mode of presentation) repeated measures ANOVA was performed with sex, age, and order of presentation entered as between-subjects factors and mode of presentation entered as-a within-subjects factor. With respect to the total number of responses given, the analysis indicated a significant main effect for mode of presentation, F( 1, 36) = 19.99, p C .OOl . As indicated in Table 1, the number of responses givenunder the prop condition (kf = 9.90) was significantly greater than the number of responses given under the picture condition (kf = 7.59). This difference between prop and picture conditions was statistically significant for each of the three age groups and for both boys and girls. There were no significant main effects associated with sex or order of presentation, but there was a significant main effect for age. For both the picture and prop conditions, the number of solutions offered by 4-year-olds was significantly greater than the number of solutions offered by 3-year-olds. The 4-year-olds did not differ from the 5-year-olds, and the 3- and Syear-olds did not differ from each other. A significant interaction between condition and order of presentation was found, F (1, 36) = 5.65, p < .05. More responses were given when props were presented on the first day (M = 11.04) than when they were presented on the second day (M = 8.75). Responses to the picture condition were not affected by order of presentation (Day 1: M = 7.67; Day 2: M = 7.50). With respect to the number of different response strategies offered, results again indicated that the children mentioned a greater variety of response strategies when tested with props (kf = 4.31) than when tested with pictures (M = 3.60), F (1, 36) = 13.55, p < .OOl. The pattern of findings with respect to age, sex, and order of presentation replicated those reported above for the total number of responses. Because the children were allowed to give both verbal and nonverbal responses to the social problem situations, it was thought that the superiority of the prop condition might be attributed to the elicitation of more nonverbal responses. To investigate this possibility, separate repeated measures ANOVAs were performed for verbal and nonverbal responses. Analyses with respect to the total number of responses given indicated that children gave significantly more verbal responses, F (1, 36) = 6.89, p < .02, as well as more nonverbal responses, F (1, 36) = 8.48, p < .Ol, when tested using props. This finding was consistent for each
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TABLE 1 Mean Number of Verbal and Nonverbal Solutions Generated and Prop Conditions for Each Age Group
Verbal Nonverbal Total Prop Condition Verbal Nonverbal Total Pictures and Props Verbal Nonverbal Total
Picture Condition
3- Year Olds
4- Year-Olds
3.31 2.19 5.50 3.94 3.44 7.38 7.25 5.63 12.88
8.88 1.06 9.94 10.00 1.63 11.63 18.88 2.69 21.57
to the Picture
5- Year-Olds 7.06 0.25 7.31 9.63 1.06 10.69 16.69 1.31 18.00
All Ages 6.42 1.17 7.59 7.86 2.04 9.90 14.28 3.21 17.49
of the three age groups and for both sexes. Analyses with respect to the number of different strategies suggested revealed similar results. Thus, the use of props facilitated verbal responding as well as nonverbal responding.
Behavioral Adjustment A second question addressed in this study concerned the relationship between SPAT scores and behavioral adjustment. On the basis of teacher ratings on the Behavior Adjustment Rating Scale, 5 children were assigned to the Inhibited group, 7 were assigned the Impulsive group, and the remaining 36 were considered Average. Given the small numbers in the Impulsive and Inhibited groups, it was not appropriate to conduct an analysis of variance across groups. However, for all three groups both the total number of responses given and the number of different strategies presented was greater in the prop condition. The magnitude of the difference between the number of responses presented in the prop condition versus the number presented in the picture condition was greatest for the Impulsive children. These children gave 63% more responses when tested with props (M = 10.71) than when tested with pictures (A4 = 6.57). In comparison, the Inhibited children-gave only 17% more responses when tested with props (M = 6.80 and 5.80, respectively). The children categorized as Average gave 27% more responses when tested with props (M = 10.17 and 8.03, respectively).
Types of Strategies A third question addressed in this study concerned types of strategies offered. For the total sample the distribution of responses across the 11 response categories was as follows: Sharing, 16.6%; Take turns, 8.3%; Tell an authority, 2.6%; Verbal requests, 10.0%; Play a trick, 0.8%; Target child submits, 8.7%; Other child submits, 11.6%; Interfering with play, 18.8%; Physical aggression, 6.2%; Relevant other, 5.4%; and Ambiguous, 10.9%. From these categories two composite categories were formed. The categories of Sharing, Taking turns, and Verbal requests were combined to form
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a category labeled “Polite” solutions. The categories of Physical aggression, Interfering with play, and Play a trick were combined to form a category labeled “Nasty” solutions. Taken together these two categories accounted for 60.8% of the total responses (Polite: 35%; Nasty: 25.8%). Because of the small number of responses in many of the individual categories, statistical analyses were completed only for the two composite categories. Separate 2 (sex) X 3 (age) ANOVAs on frequency of responses for the Polite and Nasty categories indicated a significant sex difference in the use of the categories. Girls relative to boys mentioned more “Polite” strategies (43% vs. 27%, respectively), F (1, 42) = 8.31, p < .Ol. Boys, relative to girls, mentioned more “Nasty” responses (32% vs. 20%, respectively), F (1,42) = 5.36, p < .05. No significant age differences were found. Although the small number of responses in some of the individual categories precluded statistical analysis, qualitative inspection of the categories by age suggested some interesting developmental patterns. Strategies involving interfering directly with the play of another child by taking or grabbing the desired object without attempting to bargain showed a noticeable drop in frequency across age. These strategies accounted for 28% of the responses of the 3-year-olds but only 12% of the responses of the 5-year-olds. In contrast, the use of Verbal requests increased with age, increasing from 2% of the strategies suggested by the 3-year-olds to 20% of the strategies suggested by the 5-year-olds. The category of Child submits (which usually involved a suggestion that the child who had the problem could wait until another time to play with the toy or could find something else to do) also increased with age, increasing from 4% of the strategies suggested by the 3-year-olds to 16% of the strategies suggested by the 5-year-olds. Very few of the strategies suggested by the children in this group involved physical attack of the other child. Strategies suggesting “Telling authority” also were infrequent. Responses involving playing a trick on the other child were mentioned the least (possibly because of the cognitive demands of a response involving tricking another). Strategies that involved sharing and taking turns accounted for about 25% of the responses overall and did not appear to increase or decrease over the age span studied. Additional Analyses As one check of the internal consistency of the SPAT, analyses were performed to examine whether the four types of problem situations presented to the children elicited different numbers or types of strategies. These analyses indicated that there were no significant differences in responses to the four types of problems presented in the vignettes. Also examined was the possible relationship between SPAT scores and verbal skills as measured by the PPVT. For the total sample and for each, age group taken separately there were no significant correlations between the total SPAT score and PPVT scores. Thus, for this group of 3- to 5-year-olds, SPAT scores were unaffected by differences in verbal skills.
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DISCUSSION
The results of this study clearly demonstrate that preschool children are better able to generate strategies to solve hypothetical interpersonal problems when testing is done with three-dimensional props than when it is done with two-dimensional pictures. Testing with three-dimensional props increased both the total number of solutions suggested by the children and the number of different types of strategies suggested. This facilitative effect of the three-dimensional props held for both the number of verbal responses and the number of nonverbal responses. The facilitative effect of using props was most pronounced in the testing of the impulsive children. Compared to their responses when tested with pictures, the impulsive children generated 63% more solutions when tested with props. Thus, through the use of props it was possible to acquire a more complete picture of the range of strategies available to these impulsive children. The inhibited children, on the other hand, showed only a small increase in the number of responses generated when the testing was done using props. From a clinical perspective, these results suggest that impulsive and inhibited children differ with respect to their understanding of social problem-solving strategies-a difference that would have been masked if testing had been done only with pictures. The impulsive children, unlike the inhibited children, did not appear to lack the ability to generate solutions to be used in solving social problems. In fact, when props were used as stimuli, the impulsive children were as facile in generating alternatives as were the average children. This difference between the impulsive and inhibited children in their ability to generate alternative responses, particularly if replicated across other studies and with more extreme groups, would have implications for the development of intervention strategies. For instance, inhibited children might benefit from programs designed to help them develop a broader range of alternative strategies to be used in solving social problems (Spivack & Shure, 1974). On the other hand, such training might not be as appropriate for impulsive children who appear to have a grasp of cognitive alternatives. Rather, impulsive children might benefit from a form of training that would help them to be more reflective (Robin, Schneider, & Dolnick, 1976). They also might be helped to demonstrate more mature social skills by having the classroom conditions arranged to facilitate control of impulsivity. For example, teachers could control group size, space, type and scheduling of activities, and reinforcement contingencies with the goal of providing more external controls for the impulsive child. The results of this study clearly support the theoretical formulations (e.g., Bruner, 1974; Sigel, 1970) and empirical findings (e.g., Cocking & McHale, 1981; Corsini, 1969) of developmentalists who note that preschool children are not yet as facile in manipulating pictures and words as they are in manipulating tangible objects. There are several possible explanations for the facilitating effects of the props. One possibility is that the use of props more effectively communicates with
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the representational memory storage of the child, thus facilitating the child’s understanding of the situation presented. The preschool child’s representational storage is heavily dominated by enactive and ikonic elements (Bruner, 1964) and may become more activated when stimulated by materials that allow for this type of representation. Both Corsini’s (1969) demonstration that memory for instructions in preschool children is facilitated by three-dimensional stimuli and Cocking and McHale’s (1981) demonstration of the efficacy of using objects as compared to pictures in stimulating receptive and productive language support this type of explanation. Transcripts of the responses of children in the present study indicate repeated instances in which children first acted out a solution and then translated the solution into words. This suggests that children have solutions encoded in a nonverbal form and then “translate” the solutions into a verbal form. It appears that the use of props facilitates this translation process. A second possibility is that the use of three-dimensional stimuli allows the child to discover new responses not already stored in memory. Young children are not facile in the cognitive manipulation of symbolic information. Discovery of new solutions becomes more probable when concrete manipulatives are available. This explanation is consistent with the,observations of Goodnow (1969) concerning the facilitating effects of the handling of objects for elicitation of alternative uses for common objects, and with the observations of Sigel and McBane (1967) that disadvantaged preschool children who could not sort pictures of familiar objects could sort three-dimensional representations of these objects. A third possibility is that props facilitate performance more by their effects on the child’s attention and motivation. The tester reported that when props were used the children were more interested and attentive and more excited about performing the task. Also, children who used props on the first day were disappointed when the props were not available on the second day. The tester also reported that the props were particularly important in maintaining the attention of children who appeared somewhat distractible (many of whom were later described by teachers as being impulsive). It is probable that the facilitating effects of three-dimensional stimuli arise from an interaction of the processes described above, with one or the other being more important for a particular child. Whatever the cause, it is clear that threedimensional stimuli facilitate performance of young children on social problemsolving tasks. Qualitative analyses of the responses suggested by the children indicated age differences across the 3- to 5-year age span in the types of strategies offered as solutions to social problems. These differences indicated an increase with age in the ability to come up with a clearly defined strategy; an increase in the ability to suggest strategies that involved some type of verbal bargaining or compromise; and a decrease in strategies that involved direct intrusion without compromise. From a clinical perspective, it is important to note that these age differences in the types of strategies offered are consistent with the growing cognitive capacity of the preschool child to develop hypotheses and to deal with complexity and compromise
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(Saunders & Bingham-Newman, 1984). Careful attention to the strategies provided by a given child will provide information as to the appropriate levels of abstraction and decentration to be incorporated into intervention procedures to be used with the child. The significant sex differences that were found in the types of solutions offered, with girls suggesting more “polite” strategies and boys suggesting more “nasty” strategies, were consistent with the existing literature on sex differences (Maccoby dz Jacklin, 1974). The Social Problem Alternatives Test (SPAT), when used with three-dimensional stimuli, offers considerable promise for investigators interested in assessing the social knowledge of young children. The procedure was successful with children as young as 3, and scores were not significantly related to verbal skills. Success of the SPAT is attributed to its compatibility with the representational competence of the preschool child. REFERENCES Asher, S. R., Markell, R. A., & Hymel, S. (1981). Identifying children at risk in peer relations: A critique of the rate-of-interaction approach to assessment. Child Development, 4, 1239- 1245. Asher, S. R., & Renshaw, P. D. (1981). Children without friends: Social knowledge and social skill training. In S. R. Asher & J. M. Gottman (Eds.), The development of children’sfriendships. New York: Cambridge University Press. Bruner, J. S. (1964). The course of cognitive growth. American Psychologist, 19. 1-15. Cocking, R. R., & McHale, S. (1981). A comparative study of the use of pictures and objects in assessing children’s receptive and productive language. Journal of Child Language, 8, 1-13. Corsini, D. A. (1969). Developmental changes in the effect of nonverbal cues on retention. Developmental Psychology, I, 425-435. Cowen, E. L., Pederson, A., Babigian, H., Izzo, L. D., & Trost, M. A. (1973). Long-term follow-up of early detected vulnerable children. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 42, 438446. DUM, L. M. (1965). Expanded manualfor the Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test. Minneapolis: American Guidance Service. Goodnow, J. J. (1969). Effects of active handling, illustrated by uses for objects. Child Development, 40, 201-212. Greenspan, S. (1980). Defining childhood social competence: A proposed working model. In B. K. Keogh (Ed.), Advances in special education (Vol. 3). Greenwich, CT: JAI Press. Huttenlocher, J., & Strauss, S. (1968). Comprehension and a statement’s relation to the situation it describes. Journal of Verbal Learning and Verbal Behavior, 7, 300-304. Krasnor, L. R., & Rubin, K. H. (1981). Social problem-solving skills in young children. In T. Merluzzi, C. Glass, & M. Genest (Eds.), Cognitive assessment. New York: Guilford Press. Maccoby, E. E., & Jacklin, C. N. (1974). Thepsychology of sex differences. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. Robin, A., Schneider, M., & Dolnick, M. (1976). The turtle technique: An extended case study of self control in the classroom. Psychology in the Schools, 23, 449-453. Roff, M., Sells, S. B., & Golden, M. M. (1972). Social adjustment and personality development in children. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. Saunders, R., & Bingham:Newman A. M. (1984). Piagetian perspective for preschools: A thinking book for teachers. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall. Sharp, K. C. (1981). Impact of interpersonal problem-solving training on preschoolers’ social competency. Journal of Applied Developmental Psychology, 2, 129-143.
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Sharp, K. C. (1983, April). Quantity or quality of strategies: Which indicates competency in social problem solving? Paper presented at the biennial meeting of The Society for Research in Child Development, Detroit. Shure, M., & Spivack, Cl. (1971). Huhnemann Pre-school Behavior Rating Scale. Philadelphia, PA: Hahnemann Medical College and Hospital. (ERIC Document Reproduction Service No. ED 009 363) Interpersonal problem solving as a mediator of behavioral Shure, M., Br Spivack, G. (1980). adjustment in preschool and kindergarten children. Journol ofApplied Developmental Psychology, I, 29-44. Sigel, I. E. (1970). The distancing hypothesis: A causal hypothesis for the acquisition of representational thought. In M. R. Jones (Ed.), The effects ofearly experience. Miami: University of Miami Press. Sigel, I. E. (1978). The development of pictorial comprehension, In B. S. Randhawa & W. E. Coffman @is.), Visual learning, thinking, and communication (pp. 93-l 11). New York: Academic. Sigel, I. E., & McBane, B. (1967). Cognitive competence and level of symbolization among tive-yearold children. In .I. Hellmuth (Ed.), The disadvantuged child (Vol. 1). Seattle: Special Child Publications. Spivack, G., Platt, J., & Shure, M. (1976). The problem-solving approach to adjustment. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. Social adjustment ofyoung children. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. Spivack, G., & Shure, M. (1974). Zigler, E., & Trickett, P. K. (1978). IQ, social competence, and evaluation of early childhood intervention programs. American Psychologist, 33, 789-798.
OF APPLIED
DEVELOPMENTAL
PSYCHOLOGY
5,
293-304
(1984)
Interpersonal Problem Solving in Preschool Children: A Comparison of Assessment Procedures Using Two-Dimensional versus Three-Dimensional Stimuli* JOSEPH A. GETZ Polyclinic Medical Center
JANE A. GOLDMAN
AND DAVID A. CORSINI
University of Connecticut Two procedures for assessing the social problem-solving strategies of young children were compared: a traditional meosure using pictorial stimuli and an altemotive measure in which problems were presented using three-dimension01 props. Subjeck were 48 preschool children ages 3, 4, and 5. Using a counterbalanced, repeated measures design, the two tasks were presented to the children on consecutive days. Children also received the PPVT, and teacher ratings of behoviorol adjustment were completed. Children gove more responses and suggested a greater voriety of problem-solving strotegies when tested with props than when tested with pictures. Response differences to the two testing procedures were greatest far children who were rated by their teachers as impulsive. Results ore discussed in terms of the representational competence of the preschool child. Implications of the findings for intervention strategies olso are discussed.
In recent years there has been an escalating interest in the interpersonal competence and social adjustment of preschool children. Interest in these issues has come from two sources. One is the attempt of evaluators assessing the effects of early childhood intervention programs to find an alternative to IQ as a measure of competence (Zigler & Trickett, 1978). The second is the literature indicating that signs of early social maladjustment are found in the developmental histories of juvenile delin-
*This report is based on a Masters thesis submitted by the first author to the Graduate School of the University of Connecticut. We gratefully acknowledge the help of Susan Dudek who served as the observer and helped to code the transcripts. We also would like to thank the directors, teachers, and children at Community Children’s Center, Mansfield Day Care Center, and the University of Connecticut Child Development Laboratories for their interest and cooperation. Portions of the paper were presented at the biennial meeting of the Society for Research in Child Development, Detroit, 1983. Correspondence and requests for reprints should be sent to Jane A. Goldman, Human Development Center, Box U-l 17, University of Connecticut, Storm, CT 06268.
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quents and maladjusted adults (Cowen, Pederson, Babigian, Izzo, & Trost, 1973; Roff, Sells, & Golden, 1972). Given this growing awareness of the importance of social competence, attention has been focused on both the conceptual and operational definitions of social competence (Greenspan, 1980). Although there are many issues involved in defining the components of social competence, one component that has been conceptually identified and operationally defined has been the ability to generate alternative solutions to hypothetical interpersonal problem situations. The present study concerns the measurement of this aspect of social competence in preschool children. In the pioneering work in this area, Spivack and Shure (1974) developed the Preschool Interpersonal Problem Solving Test (PIPS) as a measure of the child’s ability to generate solutions to social problems. In various studies, Shure, Spivack, and associates have shown the PIPS to differentiate between children rated by teachers as adjusted, inhibited, and impulsive, and changes in PIPS scores have been noted for children receiving social skills training (Shure & Spivack, 1980; Spivack, Platt, & Shure, 1976). However, both Sharp (1981) and Krasnor and Rubin (1981) have failed to find relationships between PIPS scores and behavioral observations in the classroom. These results caution against uncritical acceptance of the PIPS and point to the need for further study of its psychometric properties. One criticism of the PIPS test concerns the stimulus format and response demands made on the child. When taking the PIPS, the child is presented with verbal vignettes that are accompanied by pictures illustrating the respective problems, and the child is asked to verbalize solutions to the problems. However, this mode of presentation, which relies on pictures and words, does not take into account the representational competence of the preschool child. Knowledge for the preschool child is action based. For this age group, neither words nor pictures are as effective as action in facilitating thought (Bruner, 1964; Sigel, 1970). The child development research literature provides repeated demonstrations that three-dimensional stimuli are more effective than either words or two-dimensional stimuli in allowing preschool children to show their competence (Cocking & McHale,. 1981; Corsini, 1969; Goodnow, 1969; Huttenlocher & Strauss, 1968; Sigel & McBane, 1967). This literature also demonstrates the importance of allowing children to express their responses through nonverbal as well as verbal modes (Cocking & McHale, 1981; Corsini, 1969). The present study describes the development of a test for assessing the preschool child’s knowledge of alternative solutions to social problems that takes into account information derived from this research. In order to evaluate the efficacy of incorporating procedures that take into account the representational competence of preschool children, a testing format using three-dimensional stimuli was compared to a format using the typical two-dimensional stimuli. A second criticism of the PIPS has been that it taps a limited range of interpersonal problems. The PIPS asks the child to reason about only two types of problems: (a) a child wants to play with a toy that another child has; and (b) a child wants to avoid angering his/her mother after having damaged some property. In the
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present study, which focuses on peer relations, the child is presented with a wider range of interpersonal problem situations. A third issue concerning the PIPS has to do with the significance of the quantity versus the quality of the solutions offered by the children. Spivack and Shure (1974; Spivack, Platt, & Shure, 1976) have argued that it is primarily the quantity of alternatives generated that is the important element. However, Asher, Markell, and Hymel (1981) and Sharp (1983) have argued that it is the quality of response alternatives that is important in differentiating between interpersonally skillful and problemed children. Hence, in the present study both qualitative and quantitative aspects of the response alternatives were assessed. Thus, the purpose of the present study was to develop a test for assessing the preschool child’s ability to generate solutions to hypothetical interpersonal problem situations. A major question of the study concerned the relative effectiveness of using three-dimensional props versus two-dimensional pictures as stimuli. In addition to comparing the responsiveness of children when tested with props versus pictures, the new test, which was an extension of the PIPS test developed by Shure and Spivack, differed from the PIPS in the following ways: A broader range of social problem situations familiar to young children was sampled; children were allowed to “show” as well as “tell” solutions; and children were encouraged to give multiple solutions to each problem (Krasnor & Rubin, 1981). The children’s responses to the new test were interpreted in terms of content as well as quantity. Finally, responses were examined in relationship to teacher ratings of behavioral adjustment and to scores on the Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test. METHODS
Subjects Participants included 48 preschool children ages 3, 4, and 5 years, with 8 boys and 8 girls at each age level. Mean ages were 43.5 months, 54.3 months, and 66.3 months for the 3- 4- and 5-year-olds, respectively. Children attended one of three day care centers in a semirural New England university community. The children were from a variety of cultural backgrounds, but all were fluent in English. Most children were from student or professional families.
Social Problem Alternatives Task The Social Problem Alternatives Task (SPAT) was developed to assess the preschool child’s ability to generate alternative solutions to interpersonal conflict situations with peers. For both the picture and prop versions of the SPAT, the child was presented with four interpersonal conflict situations. These problems were selected from a list of problem situations developed through interviews with preschool children and their teachers. The four problem situations were: 1. Desire for possession of an object possessed by another-A child wants to play with a toy (airplane/bike) that another child has been playing with for a long
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time. (This is the situation presented by Shure and Spivack (1974) in the peer section of the PIPS); 2. Limited resources-A child reaches a desired toy (swing/wagon) at exactly the same time as another child who also wishes to play with the toy; 3. Involuntary loss of a desired possession-A child has the toy (ball/blocks) he/she is playing with taken away by another child; 4. Territorial conflict-A child desires to play/sit in a place (sandbox/snack table) that is already occupied. There is no room for the child. For the picture condition, drawings of the children in each vignette were presented on 5” by 8” cards and drawings of the objects on 3” by 5” cards. These drawings were modeled after those used in the PIPS. For the prop condition, FisherPrice people and appropriate toys and objects were used. For each situation the problem was presented to the child, and the child was asked to think of as many solutions as he/she could to resolve the problem. A typical instruction was: “This is Alex and this is Harry. Alex has been playing with this airplane for a long time. Harry would like a turn with the airplane, but Alex is still playing with it. Can you show me or tell me what Harry can do so that he can have a turn with the airplane?” In order to help overcome any possible social desirability set, children were encouraged to think of both “good” and “bad” things the children in the stories could do. Instructions given with pictures and props were the same, except that the examiner said “show or tell me” when using the props and said only “tell me” when using the pictures.
Behavioral Adjustment Rating Scale The Hahnemann Pre-School Behavior Rating Scale developed by Shure and Spivack (1971) was used in this study, with two items added. The Hahnemann scale consists of seven items (such as, physically aggressive, easily upset by peers) that are believed indicative of poor social adjustment. The two items developed for this study rated conflict (“gets into conflicts with other children”) and social problem solving (“when involved in a conflict situation with another child he/she has difficulty solving the problem in a ‘socially acceptable’ manner”). Following procedures described by Shure and Spivack, each behavior was rated on a scale of 1 to 9, with 1 indicating “less than the average child,” and 9 indicating “much more than average. ’ ’
Procedure The study involved
a counterbalanced repeated measures design with each child serving as his or her own control. Children were assigned randomly to the two orders of task presentation, with the stipulation that half of the boys and half of the girls in each age group received the picture task first, and half received the prop task first. For the prop condition, the four problem situations were presented to each child in a predetermined random order. Situations for the picture tasks were present-
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ed in an independently determined random order. Because each child received the SPAT on two occasions, two scenarios were developed for each problem situation. These scenarios (which are indicated in the task descriptions) were also randomly assigned to the prop versus picture conditions for each child. The two conditions were presented in sessions that were at least one day apart. An observer, who was present in the room, recorded both the verbal and nonverbal responses made by the child. Each interview also was tape recorded. Prior to the testing on the social problem-solving tasks, each child received the PPVT (Dunn, 1965; Form B). All testing was done by a male graduate student who had 2 years experience as a preschool teacher and had spent an extended period of time in each classroom before testing was begun. During this time he was able to establish an unusually fine degree of rapport with the children. After testing was completed, classroom teachers were asked to fill out a behavioral adjustment rating scale for each child.
Scoring Social Problem Alternatives Test. Transcripts of the children’s responses were made from the audio tapes and the notes of the observer. Responses were categorized as verbal only, nonverbal only, or both verbal and nonverbal. 1 For the purpose of analyses, the verbal-only and verbal/nonverbal categories were combined and called verbal. Each response also was coded according to the behavioral strategy suggested. Eleven categories, based on those developed by Asher and Renshaw (1981), were used: Sharing, Taking turns, Telling an authority, Verbal requests, Playing tricks on the other child, Target child submits (e.g., finds something else to do, waits until the other child is finished), Other child submits or complies, Interfering with the play of the other child (e.g., grabbing), Physical aggression against the other child, Relevant other (e.g., the “tester” could take the other child out of the room), and Ambiguous. Two scorers scored 25% of the responses and obtained 92% agreement for categorizing the responses. Behavioral Adjustment Rating Scale. The children in this study primarily were well-adjusted children from families who were not under serious economic stress. The preschool programs they attended were well staffed by teachers oriented to helping children with their personal and social adjustment. Given these conditions, there were not many children who could be described as atypically inhibited or impulsive. Following procedures developed by Shure and Spivack (1971), children who received a rating of 1 or 2 (inhibited, timid, fearful) on three or more of the nine behavior items were categorized as Inhibited. Children who received no ratings of 1 or 2 and had an average rating across the nine items of 6.5 or greater were categorized as Impulsive. All other children were categorized as Average. ‘Although in the picture condition children were asked to “tell” nonverbal responses (i.e., manipulating the pictures). These manipulations responses.
a solution, they also gave were scored as non-verbal
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Using these criteria, 5 children remaining 36 as Average.
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were rated as Inhibited,
7 as Impulsive,
and the
RESULTS
Mode of Presentation A major question raised in this investigation concerned the effect of mode of presentation on the preschool child’s ability to generate alternative solutions to social problem situations. Statistical analyses were performed to assess the effect of mode of presentation on both total number of solutions given and number of different strategies mentioned. For each of these questions, a 2 (sex) X 3 (age) X 2 (order of presentation) X 2 (mode of presentation) repeated measures ANOVA was performed with sex, age, and order of presentation entered as between-subjects factors and mode of presentation entered as-a within-subjects factor. With respect to the total number of responses given, the analysis indicated a significant main effect for mode of presentation, F( 1, 36) = 19.99, p C .OOl . As indicated in Table 1, the number of responses givenunder the prop condition (kf = 9.90) was significantly greater than the number of responses given under the picture condition (kf = 7.59). This difference between prop and picture conditions was statistically significant for each of the three age groups and for both boys and girls. There were no significant main effects associated with sex or order of presentation, but there was a significant main effect for age. For both the picture and prop conditions, the number of solutions offered by 4-year-olds was significantly greater than the number of solutions offered by 3-year-olds. The 4-year-olds did not differ from the 5-year-olds, and the 3- and Syear-olds did not differ from each other. A significant interaction between condition and order of presentation was found, F (1, 36) = 5.65, p < .05. More responses were given when props were presented on the first day (M = 11.04) than when they were presented on the second day (M = 8.75). Responses to the picture condition were not affected by order of presentation (Day 1: M = 7.67; Day 2: M = 7.50). With respect to the number of different response strategies offered, results again indicated that the children mentioned a greater variety of response strategies when tested with props (kf = 4.31) than when tested with pictures (M = 3.60), F (1, 36) = 13.55, p < .OOl. The pattern of findings with respect to age, sex, and order of presentation replicated those reported above for the total number of responses. Because the children were allowed to give both verbal and nonverbal responses to the social problem situations, it was thought that the superiority of the prop condition might be attributed to the elicitation of more nonverbal responses. To investigate this possibility, separate repeated measures ANOVAs were performed for verbal and nonverbal responses. Analyses with respect to the total number of responses given indicated that children gave significantly more verbal responses, F (1, 36) = 6.89, p < .02, as well as more nonverbal responses, F (1, 36) = 8.48, p < .Ol, when tested using props. This finding was consistent for each
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TABLE 1 Mean Number of Verbal and Nonverbal Solutions Generated and Prop Conditions for Each Age Group
Verbal Nonverbal Total Prop Condition Verbal Nonverbal Total Pictures and Props Verbal Nonverbal Total
Picture Condition
3- Year Olds
4- Year-Olds
3.31 2.19 5.50 3.94 3.44 7.38 7.25 5.63 12.88
8.88 1.06 9.94 10.00 1.63 11.63 18.88 2.69 21.57
to the Picture
5- Year-Olds 7.06 0.25 7.31 9.63 1.06 10.69 16.69 1.31 18.00
All Ages 6.42 1.17 7.59 7.86 2.04 9.90 14.28 3.21 17.49
of the three age groups and for both sexes. Analyses with respect to the number of different strategies suggested revealed similar results. Thus, the use of props facilitated verbal responding as well as nonverbal responding.
Behavioral Adjustment A second question addressed in this study concerned the relationship between SPAT scores and behavioral adjustment. On the basis of teacher ratings on the Behavior Adjustment Rating Scale, 5 children were assigned to the Inhibited group, 7 were assigned the Impulsive group, and the remaining 36 were considered Average. Given the small numbers in the Impulsive and Inhibited groups, it was not appropriate to conduct an analysis of variance across groups. However, for all three groups both the total number of responses given and the number of different strategies presented was greater in the prop condition. The magnitude of the difference between the number of responses presented in the prop condition versus the number presented in the picture condition was greatest for the Impulsive children. These children gave 63% more responses when tested with props (M = 10.71) than when tested with pictures (A4 = 6.57). In comparison, the Inhibited children-gave only 17% more responses when tested with props (M = 6.80 and 5.80, respectively). The children categorized as Average gave 27% more responses when tested with props (M = 10.17 and 8.03, respectively).
Types of Strategies A third question addressed in this study concerned types of strategies offered. For the total sample the distribution of responses across the 11 response categories was as follows: Sharing, 16.6%; Take turns, 8.3%; Tell an authority, 2.6%; Verbal requests, 10.0%; Play a trick, 0.8%; Target child submits, 8.7%; Other child submits, 11.6%; Interfering with play, 18.8%; Physical aggression, 6.2%; Relevant other, 5.4%; and Ambiguous, 10.9%. From these categories two composite categories were formed. The categories of Sharing, Taking turns, and Verbal requests were combined to form
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a category labeled “Polite” solutions. The categories of Physical aggression, Interfering with play, and Play a trick were combined to form a category labeled “Nasty” solutions. Taken together these two categories accounted for 60.8% of the total responses (Polite: 35%; Nasty: 25.8%). Because of the small number of responses in many of the individual categories, statistical analyses were completed only for the two composite categories. Separate 2 (sex) X 3 (age) ANOVAs on frequency of responses for the Polite and Nasty categories indicated a significant sex difference in the use of the categories. Girls relative to boys mentioned more “Polite” strategies (43% vs. 27%, respectively), F (1, 42) = 8.31, p < .Ol. Boys, relative to girls, mentioned more “Nasty” responses (32% vs. 20%, respectively), F (1,42) = 5.36, p < .05. No significant age differences were found. Although the small number of responses in some of the individual categories precluded statistical analysis, qualitative inspection of the categories by age suggested some interesting developmental patterns. Strategies involving interfering directly with the play of another child by taking or grabbing the desired object without attempting to bargain showed a noticeable drop in frequency across age. These strategies accounted for 28% of the responses of the 3-year-olds but only 12% of the responses of the 5-year-olds. In contrast, the use of Verbal requests increased with age, increasing from 2% of the strategies suggested by the 3-year-olds to 20% of the strategies suggested by the 5-year-olds. The category of Child submits (which usually involved a suggestion that the child who had the problem could wait until another time to play with the toy or could find something else to do) also increased with age, increasing from 4% of the strategies suggested by the 3-year-olds to 16% of the strategies suggested by the 5-year-olds. Very few of the strategies suggested by the children in this group involved physical attack of the other child. Strategies suggesting “Telling authority” also were infrequent. Responses involving playing a trick on the other child were mentioned the least (possibly because of the cognitive demands of a response involving tricking another). Strategies that involved sharing and taking turns accounted for about 25% of the responses overall and did not appear to increase or decrease over the age span studied. Additional Analyses As one check of the internal consistency of the SPAT, analyses were performed to examine whether the four types of problem situations presented to the children elicited different numbers or types of strategies. These analyses indicated that there were no significant differences in responses to the four types of problems presented in the vignettes. Also examined was the possible relationship between SPAT scores and verbal skills as measured by the PPVT. For the total sample and for each, age group taken separately there were no significant correlations between the total SPAT score and PPVT scores. Thus, for this group of 3- to 5-year-olds, SPAT scores were unaffected by differences in verbal skills.
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DISCUSSION
The results of this study clearly demonstrate that preschool children are better able to generate strategies to solve hypothetical interpersonal problems when testing is done with three-dimensional props than when it is done with two-dimensional pictures. Testing with three-dimensional props increased both the total number of solutions suggested by the children and the number of different types of strategies suggested. This facilitative effect of the three-dimensional props held for both the number of verbal responses and the number of nonverbal responses. The facilitative effect of using props was most pronounced in the testing of the impulsive children. Compared to their responses when tested with pictures, the impulsive children generated 63% more solutions when tested with props. Thus, through the use of props it was possible to acquire a more complete picture of the range of strategies available to these impulsive children. The inhibited children, on the other hand, showed only a small increase in the number of responses generated when the testing was done using props. From a clinical perspective, these results suggest that impulsive and inhibited children differ with respect to their understanding of social problem-solving strategies-a difference that would have been masked if testing had been done only with pictures. The impulsive children, unlike the inhibited children, did not appear to lack the ability to generate solutions to be used in solving social problems. In fact, when props were used as stimuli, the impulsive children were as facile in generating alternatives as were the average children. This difference between the impulsive and inhibited children in their ability to generate alternative responses, particularly if replicated across other studies and with more extreme groups, would have implications for the development of intervention strategies. For instance, inhibited children might benefit from programs designed to help them develop a broader range of alternative strategies to be used in solving social problems (Spivack & Shure, 1974). On the other hand, such training might not be as appropriate for impulsive children who appear to have a grasp of cognitive alternatives. Rather, impulsive children might benefit from a form of training that would help them to be more reflective (Robin, Schneider, & Dolnick, 1976). They also might be helped to demonstrate more mature social skills by having the classroom conditions arranged to facilitate control of impulsivity. For example, teachers could control group size, space, type and scheduling of activities, and reinforcement contingencies with the goal of providing more external controls for the impulsive child. The results of this study clearly support the theoretical formulations (e.g., Bruner, 1974; Sigel, 1970) and empirical findings (e.g., Cocking & McHale, 1981; Corsini, 1969) of developmentalists who note that preschool children are not yet as facile in manipulating pictures and words as they are in manipulating tangible objects. There are several possible explanations for the facilitating effects of the props. One possibility is that the use of props more effectively communicates with
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the representational memory storage of the child, thus facilitating the child’s understanding of the situation presented. The preschool child’s representational storage is heavily dominated by enactive and ikonic elements (Bruner, 1964) and may become more activated when stimulated by materials that allow for this type of representation. Both Corsini’s (1969) demonstration that memory for instructions in preschool children is facilitated by three-dimensional stimuli and Cocking and McHale’s (1981) demonstration of the efficacy of using objects as compared to pictures in stimulating receptive and productive language support this type of explanation. Transcripts of the responses of children in the present study indicate repeated instances in which children first acted out a solution and then translated the solution into words. This suggests that children have solutions encoded in a nonverbal form and then “translate” the solutions into a verbal form. It appears that the use of props facilitates this translation process. A second possibility is that the use of three-dimensional stimuli allows the child to discover new responses not already stored in memory. Young children are not facile in the cognitive manipulation of symbolic information. Discovery of new solutions becomes more probable when concrete manipulatives are available. This explanation is consistent with the,observations of Goodnow (1969) concerning the facilitating effects of the handling of objects for elicitation of alternative uses for common objects, and with the observations of Sigel and McBane (1967) that disadvantaged preschool children who could not sort pictures of familiar objects could sort three-dimensional representations of these objects. A third possibility is that props facilitate performance more by their effects on the child’s attention and motivation. The tester reported that when props were used the children were more interested and attentive and more excited about performing the task. Also, children who used props on the first day were disappointed when the props were not available on the second day. The tester also reported that the props were particularly important in maintaining the attention of children who appeared somewhat distractible (many of whom were later described by teachers as being impulsive). It is probable that the facilitating effects of three-dimensional stimuli arise from an interaction of the processes described above, with one or the other being more important for a particular child. Whatever the cause, it is clear that threedimensional stimuli facilitate performance of young children on social problemsolving tasks. Qualitative analyses of the responses suggested by the children indicated age differences across the 3- to 5-year age span in the types of strategies offered as solutions to social problems. These differences indicated an increase with age in the ability to come up with a clearly defined strategy; an increase in the ability to suggest strategies that involved some type of verbal bargaining or compromise; and a decrease in strategies that involved direct intrusion without compromise. From a clinical perspective, it is important to note that these age differences in the types of strategies offered are consistent with the growing cognitive capacity of the preschool child to develop hypotheses and to deal with complexity and compromise
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(Saunders & Bingham-Newman, 1984). Careful attention to the strategies provided by a given child will provide information as to the appropriate levels of abstraction and decentration to be incorporated into intervention procedures to be used with the child. The significant sex differences that were found in the types of solutions offered, with girls suggesting more “polite” strategies and boys suggesting more “nasty” strategies, were consistent with the existing literature on sex differences (Maccoby dz Jacklin, 1974). The Social Problem Alternatives Test (SPAT), when used with three-dimensional stimuli, offers considerable promise for investigators interested in assessing the social knowledge of young children. The procedure was successful with children as young as 3, and scores were not significantly related to verbal skills. Success of the SPAT is attributed to its compatibility with the representational competence of the preschool child. REFERENCES Asher, S. R., Markell, R. A., & Hymel, S. (1981). Identifying children at risk in peer relations: A critique of the rate-of-interaction approach to assessment. Child Development, 4, 1239- 1245. Asher, S. R., & Renshaw, P. D. (1981). Children without friends: Social knowledge and social skill training. In S. R. Asher & J. M. Gottman (Eds.), The development of children’sfriendships. New York: Cambridge University Press. Bruner, J. S. (1964). The course of cognitive growth. American Psychologist, 19. 1-15. Cocking, R. R., & McHale, S. (1981). A comparative study of the use of pictures and objects in assessing children’s receptive and productive language. Journal of Child Language, 8, 1-13. Corsini, D. A. (1969). Developmental changes in the effect of nonverbal cues on retention. Developmental Psychology, I, 425-435. Cowen, E. L., Pederson, A., Babigian, H., Izzo, L. D., & Trost, M. A. (1973). Long-term follow-up of early detected vulnerable children. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 42, 438446. DUM, L. M. (1965). Expanded manualfor the Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test. Minneapolis: American Guidance Service. Goodnow, J. J. (1969). Effects of active handling, illustrated by uses for objects. Child Development, 40, 201-212. Greenspan, S. (1980). Defining childhood social competence: A proposed working model. In B. K. Keogh (Ed.), Advances in special education (Vol. 3). Greenwich, CT: JAI Press. Huttenlocher, J., & Strauss, S. (1968). Comprehension and a statement’s relation to the situation it describes. Journal of Verbal Learning and Verbal Behavior, 7, 300-304. Krasnor, L. R., & Rubin, K. H. (1981). Social problem-solving skills in young children. In T. Merluzzi, C. Glass, & M. Genest (Eds.), Cognitive assessment. New York: Guilford Press. Maccoby, E. E., & Jacklin, C. N. (1974). Thepsychology of sex differences. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. Robin, A., Schneider, M., & Dolnick, M. (1976). The turtle technique: An extended case study of self control in the classroom. Psychology in the Schools, 23, 449-453. Roff, M., Sells, S. B., & Golden, M. M. (1972). Social adjustment and personality development in children. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. Saunders, R., & Bingham:Newman A. M. (1984). Piagetian perspective for preschools: A thinking book for teachers. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall. Sharp, K. C. (1981). Impact of interpersonal problem-solving training on preschoolers’ social competency. Journal of Applied Developmental Psychology, 2, 129-143.
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