The disabled and nondisabled brothers are difficult to get along each other. To increase the
quality and frequency of interaction between them, it is not enough to provide them simply with
the opportunity to be with each other. A body of research up to date suggested the need for
specially designed strategies to actually improve the quality of their interaction. It has also been
reported that social attitude of nondisabled sibling affects the quality of the interaction. Thus, it
was assumed that the improvement of the social attitude of nondisabled sibling by employing
specially designed strategies to play would lead to the improvement of the quality of the
interaction.
The purpose of this study is to examine the assumption, that is, to address the effects of
structural play between disabled and nondisabled siblings on social attitude of nondisabled
children. Social attitude in the study is comprized of acceptance, support, hostility, and confusion.
The subjects are three disabled children and their nondisabled siblings; mental retardation,
general development disorder, Down\'s syndrome. The disabled children participated in the after
school activity program for disabled children at S social welfare center in Seoul. The
measurement tool is \"Schaeffer Sibling Behavior Rating Scale\"(Edgerton, 1979). The social
attitude of nondisabled siblings were measured before and after the constructive play program.
During the 9-session program, both disabled and nondisabled siblings were engaged in the
structural play for thirty miniutes per session every week.
The major finding of the study were as follows;
1. The acceptance in nondisabled children for their disabled siblings are increased in all cases
2. The hostility in nondisabled children toward their disabled siblings are decreased in all cases.