DOCUMENT RESUME. Powell, Evan R.; Dennis, Virginia Collier

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1 DOCUMENT RESUME ED EC AUTHOR Powell, Eva R.; Deis, Virgiia Collier TITLE No-Verbal Commuicatio i Retarded Pupils. PUB DATE Feb 73 NOTE 9p.; A paper preseted at the America Educatioal Research Associatio (New Orleas, Louisiaa, February 25-March 1, 1973) EDRS PRICE MF-$0.65 HC -$3.29 DESCRIPTORS *Educable Metally Hadicapped; *Exceptioal Child Research; *Iterpersoal Relatioship; Metally Hadicapped; Noverbal Commuicatio; Racial Factors; *Spatial Relatioship; Studet Teacher Relatioship; *Traiable Metally Hadicapped ABSTRACT Thirty educable metally retarded (EMR) ad 20 traiable metally retarded (TMR) black or white pupils were observed iteractig with classmates ad 25 teachers i a-ketardatio ceter. Multi-modal commuicative behavior was oted, with focus o iterpersoal spatial distace as oe idex of relatioship ad affect betwee iteractig parters. Empirical data collected o 1,400 dyads with the use of the Deis Ifracommuicatio Aalysis Device showed that EMR pupils ad TMR pupils commuicate with their classmates at the same mea distace. I across race. pupil /pupil dyads, the white pupils set the distace. White pupils also maitaied closer distace with each other tha did black pupils. TMR pupils iteracted with their teachers at closer rage tha with other TMR pupils, though EMR pupils iteracted at moreitimate distaces with other EMR pupils tha with their teachers.. Other factors bearig o o-verbal commuicatio appeared to be agle of orietatio, gaze, kiesics, ad kiesthetics..(author/db)

2 FILMED FROM BEST AVAILABLE COPY o ) Cr LCN 1O La No-Verbal Commuicatio i Retarded Pupils 1 Eva R. Powell ad Virgiia Collier Deis Istitute for Behavioral Research, Uiversity of Georgia AUstracc Thirty EMR ad twety MR pupils were observed iteractig with classmates ad 25 teachers i a Retardatio Ceter. Multi-modal commuicative behavior was oted, with focus o iterpersoal spatial distace as oe idex of relatioship ad affect betwee iteractig parters. Empirical data collected o 1,400 dyads with the use of the DIAD showed that EMR pupils ad TMR pupils commuicate with their classmates at the same mea distace. TAR pupils iteract with their teachers at closer rage tha with other TNR pupils, ad ENR pupils iteract at more itimate distaces with othcet-emr pupili tha with their teachers. Differeces by sex ad race are also reseted. Data discussed iclude mutual agle of orietatio, gaze, kiesics; ad kiesthetics. Itroductio The preset study is oe of a series of proxemic studies made usig the Deis Ifracomriuicatio Aalysis Device (MAD) (eis, E171) i atural, academic & laboratory settigs, ad focuses o retally retaree0 pupils iteractig i dyads wit:: erch other ad!!ith their adult istructors r. a etardatio Ceter. TIe research_is descriptive, examiifr, selected spatial aspects or the commuicatio odes of EMI ad VIR childre. Several ivestigatios have cetered o distace ad gaze of ormal subjects iteractig dyadically i laboratory situatios, some o ormal subjects i atural ad academic settigs ad oe usig as subjects patiets subjected to territorial ivasio i a metal hospital (Argyle; & Dea, 1965; Baxter, 1970; Felipe & Sommer, 1966). 0 v U Kirk (1962) states that there are o basic social traits which differetiate the educable metally retarded from the average child. But are the patters of social behavior exhibited by EMR childre differet from those of TPR childre? Iterpersoal spatial distace betwee iteractig idividuals is culturally determied, ad is correlated with the social relatioship or degree of itimacy betwee the participats (Argyle," & Dea, 1965; Hall, 1966). The questio is, do EMR pupils iteract dyadically with classmates ad teachig staff, across ad withi race ad sex differetly tha do TMR pupils? 1 Paper preseted at the Meetigs of the America Educatioal Research Associatio, New Orleas, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH. EDUCATION &WELFARE NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF EDUCATION THIS DOCUMENT HAS BEEN REPRO DUCED EACTLY AS I?, ECEIVEO FROM THE PERSON OR ORGANIZATION ORIGIN ATM IT. POINTS OF VIEW OR OPINIONS STATED DO NOT NECESSARILY REPRE SENT OFFICIAL NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF EDUCATION POSITION OR POLICY. 4

3 2 Procedures Subjects were 50 Black ad white, male ad female residetial studets ad day studets, ad 25 Black ad white, male ad female adult istructors. Observatios were made i the summer, durig morig ad afteroo hours, for a period of several weeks. Data was collected i observatio rooms overlookig classrooms. Observatios of 1,400 dyads were male usig the Deis Ifracommuicatio Aalysis Device (DIAD) for observatio, classificatio, recordig ad aalysis of behavior.!cea class sizes were 9 f,r EMR, 6 fer TMR. The primary TMR class had to Black male pupils. There were o Black male teachers. There were four teachers i each classroom; i each level (EMR or THR), there was oe Primary, oe Itermediate, ad oe Adolescet class. Radomly eterig a observatio room overlookig a area cotaiig kow levels of pupils, the observer scaed from right to left, selectig iteractig dyads. Thus if several dyads were iteractig simultaeously, oly oe was observed. After otig all data, the observer atteded to the ext iteractig dyad to the left of the first; if the spatial sca eded at the left, the process was repeated. Data collectio for each dyad occupied up to five secods. Sice the purpose of the study was to do a iitial, exploratory examiatio, levels were collapsed, ad comparisos made betwee EMR ad TMR dyads of pupils oly, ad of pupils ad teachers. Data o dyadic iteractio preseted here are those of distace, mutual agle of orietatio, gaze, kiesics, ad kiesthetics. Ss were classified as to EMR/TMR, Teacher/Pupil, N/F, ad B/W. The distace measure (collected i feet/iches) was doe by the observer who had previously demostrated reliabilities above.90 i other settigs. Simply, she wrote dow the distace betwee the Ss i a dyad of the closest portios of their bodies. Thus, touch was recorded as zero distace. Distace is ot a direct measure of itimacy of commuicatio, sice closeess at a large agle, or without eye cotact, is less itimate tha_iteractio at a greater distace with face to face eye cotact. The size of the sample precludes aalysis of all data simultaeously, so the variables are preseted separately, startig with distace. Results Figures 1 through 4 give the mea iterpersoal spatial distaces i cm. for EMR pupil-teacher, EMR pupil-pupil, TMR pupil-teacher, ad TMR pupil-pupil dyads. Isert Figures 1-4 About Here

4 TEACHER Male Female "'ale Female 1,1 1.!!I Di Male Female I Hale I = I Female I I I Figure 1. Teacher-pupil agles ad distaces (i cm.), E!1R classes; "i" - itimate agles, "=" - balaced, "" - o-itimate agles. Male Female Vale Female M M Male Female Male Female I Figure 2. Pupil-pupil agles ad distaces (i cm.), E!R classes; "I" - itimate agles, "=" - balaced, "" - o-itimate agles.

5 TEACHER Male Female Male Female M M M m Male Female = =?!ale I = Female = I Figure 3. Teacher-pupil agles ad distaces (i cm.), TMR classes; "I" - itimate agles, "=" - balaced, "" - o-itimate agles. Male Female Male Female ts?!... io its Male Female I Male Female Figure 4. Pupil-pupil agles ad distaces (i cm.), TNra classes; "I" - itimate agles, "=" - balaced, "" - o-itimate agles.

6 Overall, TMR ad EMR pupil-pupil distaces are both 18 cm. There are some iterestig differeces which ted to aswer the questio posed; oe is that teacher-pupil distace is 10 cm. for TMR, but 45 cm. for EMR teacher-pupil dyads. The latter result ca be iterpreted to reflect istructors' use of tactile modes of istructio with the less-verbal TMR pupils. Figures 2 ad 4 show that Black-Black dyads are father apart tha are White-White dyads; this is i accord with Baxter (1970) who foud the same thig i a iformal, outdoor settig. The across-race data are difficult to iterpret due to small '' i the Teacher-Pupil dyads (Figures 1 & 3), but the pupil-pupil '' is substatial. I the EMR classes, cotrary to Joh Dollard's oft-quoted statemet about the saliece of Black male-white female dyads i the South, this dyad was the most itimate as to distace. I the TMRs, however, the Black females were closer to whites tha were the males (Figure 4), but the Black-white across sex differeces were reversed. The agle betwee members of a dyad was recorded; this was the agle obtaied betwee the torso of oe ad the torso of aother. Categories of agles raged from 0 for 00, 1 for 450, 2 for 900, through 8, back to back, ad 9, frot to back. For this paper, categories 0, 1 ad 2 are labeled itimate, 3 through 9 o-itimate. Figures 1-4 show which types of dyads had more itimate (I) tha o-itimate () agles; the "=" shows that equal umbers of dyads (z 10%). were itimate or o-itimate. Rather tha beig egatively correlated to distace, i the Teacherpupil dyads, itimacy seemigly has to do with race. The white-white pupil-teacher dyads are geerally itimate i both EMR (Figure 1) ad TMR (Figure 3) classes. I the across-race dyads of pupil ad Teacher, the fidigs are geerally that Teachers are itimate with EMR pupils but less itimate with TMRs. The Black-Black dyads are ot as itimate as the white-white. Pupil-pupil dyads (Figures 2 ad 4) geerally followed racial pairig patters of itimacy. The EMR white-black, ad especially the TMRs, were o-itimate. The white-white EMRs were the most itimate; most dyads with Black males were o-itimate. I the TMRs, oly Black-Black females were more itimate tha ot, whereas i the EMR, as has bee poited out, whites iteracted itimately with whites.

7 4 Data o gaze, ecessitatig a table 6 x 6 x 12, are preseted without tables. The categories raged from 1 - gazig ito eyes, 2 - gazig at face to 6 - ot lookig at dyadic parter. Cosiderig oly pupils, the TMR Black females were most itimate (gaze at face, eyes, or body) with each other, while i EMR it was the white females. I geeral, Females with Females were more itimate tha Males with Males; mixed sexes were least itimate. Except for Female/Female, blacks were less itimate tha whites. I the Teacher-pupil dyads, for same race ad sex, Teachers were more cofrotive (itimate) tha pupils; else, pupils averted their gaze. This was true i both TMR ad EMR classes. White pupils averted from Black teachers, Black pupils averted from white teachers. The kiesics categories - smile, frow, od, gesture, were ifrequetly used. The oly oticeable differece i the sparse data was that teachers smile more tha pupils, ad oly oe smile (of 19) was across both race ad sex. The kiesthetic categories (1 - hold & caress, 2 - caress, 3 - hold, 4 - cotact, S - brush, 6 - touch, etc.) were seldom used; so the data thus caot he used to reach ay coclusios. The largest icideces were 8 times a EMR pupil held a teacher, 11 ties a TKR teacher held a pupil. Summary EMR-TMR Differeces. There was o overall differece i distace betwee iteractig pupils. Teachers of TMR were closer tha EMR teachers were to pupils. TMR pupils were less itimate with each other accordig to the agle data tha were EMR pupils; the same obtaied for teachers ad pupils. Gaze of eyes produced o overall differeces betwee EMR ad MR pupils ad their teachers; the sparse Riesic ad kiesthetic data produce oly suggestive differeces. Race Differeces. Black pupils, both EMR ad TMR maitaied greater space betwee them tha did white pupils. Black/white dyads were closer to white-white meas tha to Black/Black meas for distace betwee pupils. Black teachers with Black pupils were probably closer tha were white teachers to white pupils i EMR but ot i Female Teacher/Male pupil i the THR classes. I agle to each other, white pupils'were probably more itimate with each other tha were black pupils; white teachers had more itimate agles with pupils tha did the Black teachers. I terms of gaze directio, Blacks were less itimate, i.e., averted more tha whites; with teachers, across-race coditios produced aversio by the pupil.

8 Sex Differeces. There are o overall Pupil/Pupil sex differeces withi race i distace, but i itimacy of agle Females are more cofrotive tha males; the latter was also true i eye cotact (gaze). I the Teacher-pupil iteractios, there are o overall differeces by sex i distace, mixed data o agles, eye directio data are uclear, as are kiesics ad kiesthetics. Discussio This study is descriptive ad suggestive rather tha difiitive. We have discered a umber of differeces i behavior betwee EMR ad T?IR childre (with differet teachers) whe sex ad race are cosidered. There are also some differeces across race, across sex, ad more complex differeces. The complete aalysis, simultaeously, of all variables ad levels of behavior would have take more computer capability tha is available; approximately 1,200K. This poits up the difficulty i aalysis of complex behavior patters. It is traditioal to call for further research; the message of this paper is that such work is ecessary, possible, ad realistic i that iterpretable idffereces do occur. Probably the most fasciatig fidig is the oe suggestig, i across-race pupil/pupil dyads, that the white pupils, who maitai closer distace with each other tha do Black pupils, set the distace i Black-white iteractios. If, as we kow, too much itimacy (closeess) is upsettig, we ca the iterpret the agle data to show that white white pupils cotrol social distace, Blacks cotrol the agle at which they iteract, preservig themselves. Oe other fidig, that of pupils avertig gaze from across-race teachers, is suggestive of the eed for further study of basic iterpersoal dyamics as well. So ow lets look at o-verbal behavior as well as verbal.

9 6 Refereces Argyle, M., & Dea, J. Eye cotact, distace ad affiliatio. Sociometry, 1965, 28 (3), Baxter, J. C. Iterpersoal spacig i atural settigs. Sociometry, 1970, 33 (4), Deis, V. C. The Deis ifracommuicatio aalysis device (DIAD). Baresville, Ga.: Author, Felipe, N. J., & Sommer, R. Ivasios of persoal space. Social Problems, 1966, 14 (Fall), Hall, E. T. The Hidde Dimesio. Garde City, N. Y.: Doubleday, Kirk, S. A. Educati,, exceptioal childre. Bosto: Houghto iffli, 1962.