“PROYECTO DE LEY QUE MODIFICA EL NUMERAL 3 DEL ARTÍCULO 158 DEL DECRETO LEGISLATIVO 957, CÓDIGO PROCESAL PENAL”

This study was concerned with the second project prediction: that some congenitally blind children would manifest characteristic impairments in interpersonal relatedness. It therefore examined whether the assessments made by teachers in the previous chapter of children’s interpersonal relating were supported by empirical observations. If indeed they were, the assessments could justifiably be used in subsequent examination of the third prediction: that children with impairments in interpersonal relatedness would be predisposed to have difficulties in their social understanding, as shown through their ‘theory of m ind’ and abilities in symbolic play, even when their level of ‘general’ cognitive competence was taken into account.

On these observations of blind children’s social play it was predicted that those blind children previously placed in the ‘low social’ group on the basis of teachers’ judgements would be shovm to rate as less socially able, relative to their ‘high social’ counterparts. This would mean children in the 'low social* group demonstrating a lower number of observation periods for the more social category items, that is, showing a lesser degree of engagement with others - especially in language use, less emotional expressivity, and less socially connected and pretend play, than children in the 'high social' group. The ‘low social’ children would show a higher number of rating periods for the least social, most disengaged category items, such as 'placidity' of ‘Emotional tone'.

RESULTS

Inter-rater reliability

As a check for rating reliability, four subjects were randomly selected for simultaneous and independent rating by the primary investigator and a second rater, naive to the study. Inter-rater reliabilities were calculated, using Kappa coeSicients. The following table was produced [Table 3.4], giving two types of coefficient. Firstly, 'unweighted' Kappa calculates the degree of accord between raters on the scales, on simple agreement or not for each rating. The 'quadratic' Kappa assigns a 'weight' to any disagreement, according to the relative distance between the two ratings.

For instance, discrepant ratings of 'T and '5' will adversely affect the final 'quadratic' Kappa coefRcient much more highly than discrepant ratings of, say, T and '2', or even '3' and '5'. The percentage-agreement is also given for each rating criterion.

Ta b l e 3.4: Ka p p a Co e f f i c i e n t s f o r t w o r a t e r s o n t h e So c i a l Ob s e r v a t io n

RATINGS OF FOUR BLIND CHILDREN RATING CATEGORY Proximity Emotional Tone Social Engagement Sociability of Play Type o f Play Social Language Unweighted 0.1770 0.7000 0.7222 0.8571 1.0000 0.6845 Quadratic 0.5305 0.6018 0.8837 0.9813 1.0000 0.8734 Percentage- agreement 50% 85% 85% 90% 100% 75%

Using the 'quadratic' coefficients, all but two of the rating criteria produced coefficients above 0.61, considered 'substantial'. Coefficients above 0.81 are considered 'almost perfect' (Landis and Koch; 1977). This implied that when the raters disagreed, their respective ratings were most likely still to be very close to each other. O f the others, ‘Emotional tone’ was only marginally below the 0.61 level, and results were therefore used freely for analysis. However, 'Proximity', at 0.5305 was in the 'moderate' range of agreement, and while results for this criterion are presented and discussed for illustrative value, caution should be expressed as to its reliability.

Observation results

The ratings of children's pragmatic language use were conducted in a way that differed from the other measures, and so were considered separately.

In order to clarify the meaning of the results, it may be useful to review the structure of the observations, presented here diagrammatically:

OBS. SESSION 1 OBS. SESSION 2 OBS. SESSION 3 TOTAL FOR EACH CHILD

5 X RATING PERIODS

20-secs, each

(at least 5 min. in time-span)

5 X RATING PERIODS

20-secs, each

(at least 5 min. in time-span)

5 X RATING PERIODS

20-secs, each

(at least 5 min. in time-span)

15 X R A T I N G P E R I O D S

There were three observation sessions, each of five 20-second time-sampling periods. Results are presented in terms of the number of such periods (out of the total 15) in which a particular form of behaviour occurred [see Tables 3.5 and 3.6, in Appendix 3]. Therefore since each criterion proximity, emotional tone, social play and type of play - was rated once for each of the fifteen time-sampled

periods, and since the behavioural item categories scored within each criterion were mutually exclusive, the scores on behavioural items within a given criterion added up to 15 for each individual child. It should be noted, though, that three subjects from each group were not observed over the full three sessions. That is to say, in each group, two children were watched for two sessions (ten periods) and the other for one (five periods). The item scores for these children were therefore multiplied by

1.5 and 3 respectively to establish comparable pro-rated total scores out of fifteen.

The results are firstly descriptively presented as median scores for each group of individuals, so that the 'low social' and 'high social' groups might be directly compared. Group comparisons are then made of children's total scores for particular categoiy items. Variances in the scores from the two populations were not equal ,and so without the assumption of a normal distribution a non-parametric statistical analysis was employed: the Maim-Whitney U test [results in Appendix 3, Table 3.7]. This rationale followed too for statistical comparisons made in subsequent chapters. Also, contingency table comparisons were made using the Fisher's Exact test to illustrate respective proportions of children with specific profiles of scoring [results in Appendix 3, Table 3.9]. These contingency tables represent numbers of children in each group with directly opposite patterns of scoring. A few children had tied scores, i.e. equal numbers of observation periods showing particular behaviours. These were assigned to the most 'positive' social or play item.

When considering the statistical significance of the results, it was necessary to make adjustments given the multiple number of comparisons made (with the corresponding possibility of unsound positive findings). This was because for each rating period there were a number of simultaneous judgements made. Therefore, a revised, acceptedly conservative, level of significance was also calculated by dividing the commonly acceptable level of probability (P ^ 0.05) by the number of criterion items, i. e. the revised level of significance was P < 0.05 / 7 ^ 0.00714. There was an expectation that blind children in the socially impaired, 'low social' group would show relatively impoverished qualities of social engagement with others, and a shallower range of emotional affect, with less sociability in play and language. However, in order to retain a conservative approach to the

The summaiy results of scores, i.e. numbers of observation periods (maximum 15) on which judgements were applied, were as follows;