Children's willingness to share activities with a physically handicapped peer: am I more willing than my classmates?

OBJECTIVE

To examine factors affecting children's willingness to share activities with a peer presented as physically handicapped.

METHOD

Participants were 120 elementary school children randomly assigned to view a video of an ambulatory child or the same child in a wheelchair. They rated, on the Shared Activities Questionnaire (SAQ), their own willingness (SAQ-Self) and their perceptions of classmates' willingness (SAQ-Others) to participate in activities with the child.

RESULTS

SAQ-Self ratings were consistently higher for the peer in the wheelchair. On the SAQ-Others, differences favoring the child in the wheelchair disappeared, and ratings of this child were lower than SAQ-Self ratings. No interactions were found between ambulation status and age or rater gender or preference for type of shared activity.

CONCLUSIONS

Children showed highly positive intentions toward a peer in a wheelchair, but intentions attributed to classmates were less positive, which suggests "social desirability" influenced their own ratings.