Expectations And Social Interactions Of Children With And Without Mental Retardation

Abstract

Mentally retarded and nonretarded perceiver children (n = 40) conversed by telephone with a child who was described as a special or regular education student. Perceivers reported that special and regular education telephone partners behaved differently during the conversation even though observers who were unaware of how telephone partners had been described did not detect behavioral differences between them. These same observers did detect differences in stereotype-related social behaviors of mentally retarded and nonretarded perceivers, but only when perceivers thought they were speaking to a regular education student. Observer ratings also suggested that non-retarded perceivers “talked down” to special education telephone partners. These results suggest that stereotypes about children with and without learning problems may become self-fulfilling prophecies by altering how children treat one another and by affecting how they interpret each other's behaviors.