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In line with research on school age children, research from the early years literature suggests naturalistic interventions to support peer interactions are most effective (Burriss, Kemple, Duncan, & Strangis, 2002; Kemple, David, & Hysmith, 1997).

Relevant research from early years literature tends to refer to ‘social scaffolding’ when discussing adult facilitation of peer interactions. However, there is limited research exploring this outside laboratory conditions (Williams et al., 2010). The limited studies that do exist focus on teacher rather than TA scaffolding strategies in early years settings.

Findings suggest that teachers rarely intervene in peer interactions and when they do their interventions have tended to be related to classroom management, are adult led, direct, restrictive, punitive or rule based (Kemple et al., 1997; Williams et al., 2010). Kemple et al. (1997) highlighted that attempts to facilitate preschool children’s peer interaction included helping children interpret

behaviour and promoting communication. This study highlighted the

importance of staff to child ratios in effective adult support, stating that types of restrictive or disruptive intervention were lower when here was a high staff to child ratio.

Williams et al. (2010) found a negative relationship between children who experienced above average amounts of adult-centred or child-centred

scaffolding and social measures such as peer sociability or peer refusal at six month follow up. However, no information was provided for whether existing social difficulties or levels of social competence were controlled for. Therefore results may instead suggest that adults supported children with existing social difficulties more often than other children.

In summary, within both preschool and school age literature, there is little direct or detailed investigation of adults’ roles in facilitating peer interactions, which explains the lack of good practice recommendations for this area (Williams et al., 2010).

However, a study from the Netherlands developed some recommendations for the adult support of children’s development more broadly, based on a review of early years literature called the Caregiver Interaction Profile Scales

(Helmerhorst, Riksen-Walraven, Vermeer, Fukkink, & Tavecchio, 2014). These included fostering positive peer interactions in addition to a number of other factors such as ‘sensitive responsiveness to emotional needs, respect for

autonomy, structuring and limit setting, verbal communication-frequency, quality of interactions between caregiver and children and developmental stimulation.’ Although originally intended for the early years age range, the authors

suggested that adult facilitation across these areas may be applicable to older children with SEND (Helmerhorst et al., 2014).

Williams et al. (2010) also argue that adult centred scaffolding of peer interactions is not always necessary for school age children but may still be appropriate for children with SEND if the type of scaffolding used has been tailored to fit the child’s needs (Kemple et al., 1997). Contradictorily Bruce et al. (2011) warned that children can become too dependent on adult scaffolding to interpret what the child is saying.

2.9.1 Models of peer interaction support from the early years literature

Brown, Odom and Conroy, (2001) have developed a conceptual framework for early education teachers supporting peer interactions based on early years research (Figure 2.2). The hierarchy includes incidental teaching of social behaviour, friendship activities, social integration activities and explicit teaching of social skills. It suggests that interventions should be arranged in a hierarchy starting at the least intrusive before moving on to more complex intensive and structured interventions (Rubin et al., 2007). While this cannot be directly applied to school age children due to evidence for a changing developmental trajectory in peer interactions, a literature search returned no results for models of TA support of peer interactions for school aged children aside from Baxter’s (2014) adjusted REPIM model discussed earlier. This model could instead be used as a starting point to consider the application of interventions for school aged children.

Figure 2.2 Hierarchy for promoting young children’s peer interactions (Brown et al., 2001)

Other theories and models of TA support focus on academic achievement (Cremin, Thomas & Vincett, 2005; Radford, et al., 2014) or organisational factors that impact on the effectiveness of TA deployment (Webster, Blatchford, Bassett, Brown, Martin & Russell, 2011). These do not directly address the social developmental needs of children and how they can be supported or obstructed by TAs, including how they could support or facilitate peer interactions.

TA practice would benefit from a model of good practice for the support of peer interactions and the application of interventions. An aim of the current small- scale, exploratory research is that it will contribute in some way to the

development of such a model to provide a framework for TA practice in this area. In order for this to be developed, there is a need for research

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FIGURE 1. _Hierarchy for _{promoting young children’s peer interactions.}

that we have encouraged interventionists to employ the least intrusive and most _{normal type of peer} interaction interventions _(ones that require fewer _changes in classroom

routines with fewer additional resources) before moving on to more complex, demanding interventions. In addition, we have recommended that interventionists first employ two classroom-wide _{interventions-developmentally} ap- propriate practices (DAP) within inclusive _early child- hood _programs and _{a f fective} interventions-to influence children’s attitudes. When needed, we have recommended

that interventionists _employ four individualized inter- ventions : incidental _{teaching o f} social bebavior, friend- ship activities, social _integration activities, and _explicit

teaching o f social skills. When a particular intervention is not _effective, we have suggested that interventionists

proceed to _{another, perhaps} more intensive, intervention that _might involve additional teacher _planning and prep-

aration time and _{relatively straightforward} classroom

changes. Although developed independently, the _hierarchy has been similar to and _compatible with recommendations of other _early childhood educators who have advocated the initial use of less directive procedures when promot- ing children’s _{development (Bricker,} Pretti-Frontczak, & McComas, 1998; Noonan & McCormick, 1993; Nourot

& Van Hoorn, 1991; see Note 2).

We _previously noted that critical aspects of our

decision-making process are that intervention strategies should be _&dquo;(a) effective _{(i.e., clearly improve} children’s

peer interactions); (b) efficient (i.e., make meaningful use of children’s and teachers’ time); (c) functional (i.e., pro-

at University College London on April 29, 2016

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investigating TAs current role in supporting peer interactions already going on between children in the playground as well as facilitating new interactions between peers, through exploring the processes and mechanisms involved and the factors influencing their practice.