FACTORS RELATED TO THE MAINTENANCE OF SOCIAL-INTERACTION AMONG WITHDRAWN PRESCHOOL-CHILDREN

It is difficult for withdrawn children to enter a play and to maintain social interaction with other children. This investigation attempted to identify whether the difficulty was due to their incorrect perception of others' responses or due to the lack of their self-confidence. Forty-five 5- and 6-year sold nursery school children enrolled in six day-care classroom's served as subjects. They were divided into high middle or low groups by the degree of withdrawal, and each child was asked to play with two other same-age peers. Analyses by the observation of video recordings and the interviewing of the children revealed that the low withdrawals could perceive other children's responses more correctly than any other group, whereas there was no difference among the three groups in self-confidence. Thus, it was interpretated that those highly withdrawal children cannot skillfully enter plays with other children because they were unable to perceive other children's responses correctly. After entering a play, they also remained solitary almost all the time. The highly withdrawn children tended to keep themselves alone, while the children in low and middle degrees of withdrawal seemed to attempt to join other children even after being rejected or neglected by other children.