Attitudes of children towards peers with acquired brain injury (ABI)

Children with acquired brain injury (ABI) can experience severe problems in establishing peer relationships. The attitudes peers hold toward a child with an ABI can significantly impact on their willingness to befriend. The present work sought to investigate the attitudes peers hold toward a fictional child with ABI.

Fifty children from a primary school were compared against a similar number from a secondary school. Gender was evenly split across both groups. A vignette describing a young boy acquiring a brain injury, and his subsequent change in behaviour, was presented to the children. The Friendship Activity Scale (FAS) was then used to judge how likely the children were to befriend the fictional character.

Results showed a statistically significant interaction between gender and age [F(1, 96) 6.285, p = 0.014] with older males expressing more positive attitudes than younger males.

The study suggests that children with ABI are more likely to experience negative attitudes in primary school, and concludes in calling for additional research to more fully explore the social experience of children with ABI.