Document Type
Article
Date of Original Version
2012
Department
Nursing
Abstract
Close friendships become important at middle-school age and are unexplored in adolescents born prematurely. The study aimed to characterize friendship behaviors of formerly preterm infants at age 12 and explore similarities and differences between preterm and full-term peers on dyadic friendship types. From the full sample of N = 186, one hundred sixty-six 12-year-old adolescents (40 born full term, 126 born preterm) invited a close friend to a 1.5 hour videotaped laboratory play session. Twenty adolescents were unable to participate due to scheduling conflicts or developmental disability. Characteristic friendship behaviors were identified by Q-sort followed by Q-factoring analysis. Friendship duration, age, and contact differed between the full-term and preterm groups but friendship activities, behaviors, and quality were similar despite school service use. Three Q-factors, leadership, distancing, and mutual playfulness, were most characteristic of all dyads, regardless of prematurity. These prospective, longitudinal findings demonstrate diminished prematurity effects at adolescence in peer friendship behavior and reveal interpersonal dyadic processes that are important to peer group affiliation and other areas of competence.
Publication Title, e.g., Journal
Scientifica
Volume
2012
Citation/Publisher Attribution
Mary C. Sullivan, Suzy Barcelos Winchester, Jeffrey G. Parker, Amy K. Marks, "Characteristic Processes in Close Peer Friendships of Preterm Infants at Age 12", Scientifica, vol. 2012, Article ID 657923, 10 pages, 2012. https://doi.org/10.6064/2012/657923
Available at: https://doi.org/10.6064/2012/657923
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License.