Friendship quality among children in three educational settings

Abstract

This study investigates the quality of friendship as reported by adolescents with mild intellectual disabilities in different educational settings, compared with similar reports by students without disabilities. Participants included 121 students with intellectual disability in special education schools, 189 students with intellectual disability in self-contained mainstreamed schools and 265 students without disability. Results indicated significant differences between these groups in their perception of friendship. Students with intellectual disability in special schools tended to have fewer friends than students with intellectual disability within mainstreamed schools, most of them meeting friends at school only. The students in special education schools responded more passively, and felt lonelier, than students in the other groups.