TEMPE, Ariz., July 16 (UPI) -- Passive preschoolers do better with their peers, and aggressive, angry and inattentive preschooler have fewer playmates, U.S. researchers found.
Researchers at Arizona State University observed 97 students in six preschool classrooms in an urban southwest area of the United States. The students' teachers also reported on the children's behavior.
Using a new quantitative procedure called the Q-connectivity method, the researchers repeatedly assessed the children's peer interactions to determine how many peers the children interacted with and how often those interactions took place.
The study, published in the July/August issue of the journal Child Development, said aggressive, angry, and inattentive children tended to play with fewer peers repeatedly over time than their non-aggressive classmates, who were more successful at interacting frequently with many classmates over time. The findings were the same for boys and girls.
