Naftali, 13-months-old, toddled into the plywood playhouse. Benjy came by, stuck his head in through the open window space, saw his friend and grinned broadly. Chuckling heartily, Naftali toddled out of the house and vocalized as he went to the side window. Then he ran into the house again and watched expectantly as Benjy again put his head in and smiled and vocalized a greeting. Naftali ran out again, and this time, Benjy took a turn and ran into the playhouse. Naftali now imitated Benjy by going to peer into the window. He crowed with delight on seeing his friend now inside the playhouse. The two toddlers giggled and ran in and out of the playhouse taking turns peeking in to see each other.

Every parent and teacher hopes that the young children in his and her care will have lots of playmates and get along well with peers. Training for caregivers of infants and toddlers often emphasizes the importance of building a loving and secure emotional relationship between child and adult, as well as the importance of boosting language and cognitive advances. Yet training may give short shrift to the important area of helping toddlers develop positive social skills in peer interactions. Toddlers need help with four aspects of peer play. They need to learn group entry skills so that they can successfully maneuver to join others at an activity that seems attractive. Very young children need to learn ways to sustain a play bout once a game is initiated or a bid to join in has been accepted, and they need to learn how to recognize a friendly peer bid and respond appropriately to ensure a positive peer engagement when a toddler makes an overture to them.

In some childcare facilities, caregivers may not notice if a toddler usually hovers as an onlooker, stares long and gravely as peers play, but seems to have no clue as to how to join in the play. Some teachers try to help but may be intrusive in their efforts to encourage peer entry skills. Some adults require that toddlers "let" the avid onlooker play with them. Or they simply verbally suggest that the toddler join in, without providing personal supports or language bridges to ease that entry. Other caregivers are sensitive to the need for subtlety and variety in the ways that they help peers engage in sociable togetherness.

The mystery of how infants and toddlers become skilled social actors with peers within the first few years of life has not been examined as often as peer interactions of preschoolers and older children (Asher & Gottman,1981; Parten,1932; Rubin, 1980). Without specific caregiver intervention to shape or facilitate positive peer skills, early inappropriate or inept patterns of social initiatives may continue for some children into the preschool and school age period. Children who are isolates or rejected by their peers tend to exhibit stable patterns of inappropriate social skills (Roopnarine 8z Honig,1985). When attempting to enter groups, unpopular children are less likely to be accepted and more likely to be ignored than popular children (Putallaz & Gottman,1981). Thus, the origins of toddler social competencies with peers needs to be studied at the point when young toddlers begin to initiate social behaviors toward peers (Bronson, 1981; Brownell, 1990; Eckerman, et al., 1975; 1989, Goralnick, 1992; Mueller & Brenner, 1977; Ross & Lollis, 1989). What are the initial actions by which toddlers evince a social interest in engaging their peers? Do these actions result in successful, if brief, peer play bouts or are they rejected or ignored? Do initiators lack skills to continue a bid so that a brief bid may have no positive social sequel?

Caregivers with preschoolers are often quite sensitive to children's needs for help in successful social play (Adcock & Segal, 1983; Paley, 1992; Smilansky & Sheftaya, 1990). Caregivers of toddlers need to become more aware of early toddler social ploys and of how they can help toddlers succeed more often in interpreting a peer's friendly but imprecise bid for social play. Even more adult skill may be needed in helping toddlers manage to sustain play bouts already begun.

How social skills develop in infancy

Social skills begin with infant recognition of the peer as a social partner during the first year of life, then engagement in complementary and reciprocal social interactions during the early toddler period (13-24 months), and finally, communication of shared meaning as to the content of the social interaction from 25 to 36 months during the late toddler period (Howes, (1987).

Before toddlers learn the subtle skills of how to play peaceably with others, they must first learn successfully how to initiate contacts with a potential playmate. One of the more difficult social skills they need to learn is how to negotiate entry into play with a peer already engaged with other peers.

In family life situations, sometimes an older sibling entrains a toddler into play or responds more positively to the role of "big sister" or "big brother" in accepting play bids of a toddler. However, in the world of childcare, playmates are most often at the same developmental level as the toddler. This age similarity may further equality of power in some instances, and possibly more mutually enjoyable goals in interactions, as in the joyful peek-a-boo game described above. Yet when group age range is narrow and developmental levels are so similar, then the ability to decode peer social signals, to assess others' social needs and goals, and to find ready ways to engage others so that they are willing to admit a peer into ongoing play requires cognitive skills in short supply among toddlers, many of whom are barely out of sensorimotor Piagetian levels of functioning. A decision to establish mixed age grouping may ease adult attempts to help very young children learn daycare and sociability rules.

Toddlers and preschoolers were finishing their lunch and two-year-old Tony had spilled his milk. Jerry, a preschooler sitting near him, tried to explain to Tony that the puddle needed to be wiped. Tony smiled but did not seem to understand. Jerry shook his head and said "See, Tony, you get a paper towel and wipe it all up"; and he proceeded to demonstrate how to clean up the milk puddle on the floor while Tony leaned over to watch in fascination.

Observing toddler strategies

Recently we have studied techniques toddlers use to try to join in a social interaction with a peer or peers (Honig & Thompson, 1993) in order to understand how teacher training in this domain can be made more effective. We focused on the techniques that toddlers use in such circumstances, the reactions of peers and teachers to these strategies, and the outcomes of the toddler social bids toward peers. Twenty-four middle-class toddlers (ten girls and 14 boys, age range 23 to 33 months) were observed in a half-day University cooperative nursery school. In each classroom, the toddlers, from multi-cultural student or professional families, had been together as a group for an average of 11 weeks prior to the observation of their peer play entry bids. Each classroom includes four adults (a highly trained head teacher, two student assistant teachers and a parent assistant).

The toddler program is based on a Constructivist philosophy. That is, the role of the caregivers is to support and facilitate each child's interaction with the physical and social environment, while allowing much freedom of choice. Toddlers select activities from a number of distinct learning areas: dramatic play, sandbox, manipulative table, playscape, easel, library, writing corner, art area, and block area.

Event sampling (Bentzen, 1993, p.88) of toddler attempts to engage a peer was carried out during free-play time from 9:00 AM to 10:30 AM over a period of 13 weeks. Any behavior, whether toddler-initiated or teacher-facilitated, was tallied until 150 events had been recorded (with 89% inter-observer reliability). The anecdotal record included the type of bid used to gain entrance to the peer group interaction, the length of an entry bid, the number of strategies per bid, the reaction to a bid by the peers or by a caregiver, and the outcome of the toddler bid. Play-entry strategies were coded as distal contacts, such as staring at peer play from a distance greater than three feet away; proximal contact (such as touching a peer or leaning over next to a peer, within three feet of the peer(s); and verbalizing. Peer responses to toddler play-entry attempts were coded as accepting, rejecting, or ignoring. The outcomes to a peer bid were coded (with 80% reliability) as: imitative play, parallel play, associative play, reciprocal play, activity with adult, self-comfort, or termination (when the toddler initiated a bid and then simply left the scene).

Toddlers made 63% of their bids to a single peer and 37% to a group. The locale of events was distributed over the various areas of the classrooms, with the dramatic play area and the gross-motor playscape having a slightly greater proportion (17% and 13% respectively) of the tallied events than the other areas. Arranging the environment to enhance the opportunities for peer sociability is an important aspect of promoting peer play. When there is a rocking boat or a toy car that several toddlers can "ride" in, then the probability increases that peers will interact with each other. Putting several pounding peg toys with hammers out in a small area enhances the chances for peers to come over to pound next to a toddler already vigorously pounding pegs.

Toddler bids were fairly brief. The 150 bids recorded ranged in length from thirty seconds to five minutes, with a mean length of 1 minute, 21 seconds. An adult was present in 25 of 95 toddler bids (26%) toward one peer and an adult attempted to facilitate toddler entrance to peer play in 13 of those 25 events. A caregiver was present in 23 of 55 events where toddlers attempted to gain entry into group play, and in nine of these 23 events (39%) an adult attempted to facilitate the toddler's bid. Adults, however, were not present in a majority of the episodes. They only attempted to facilitate peer social interaction in 15% or 22 of 150 events. Teachers may want to notice more carefully when a toddler is attempting to make sociable peer contacts. Just as the "teachable moment" has been suggested as the optimal time to introduce new cognitive concepts to young children, teachers may want to increase their awareness of social "teachable moments" when a toddler tries a ploy to join in play.

When teachers did intervene, there was no increase in the mean length of the episode, and sometimes toddlers did not accept adult suggestions.

Paul tells the teacher that he is going to build a castle with blocks. "Why not ask Rashid to help you build?'; suggests the teacher. Pau1 accepts the suggestions and calls "Come on over, Rashid, come over. " Paul gets up and walks over to invite Rashid, who says he does not want to build and begins to cry. Paul goes back to building by himself.

Adults may need to become more aware of whether toddlers, who are emotionally in Eriksonian stage 2 (Autonomy vs. Shame or Doubt) or the beginnings of Stage 3 (Initiative vs. Guilt) (Erikson,1950) actually are themselves choosing to engage with a peer or would prefer not to be entrained into an activity the teacher has decided would be "good" for the child's socioemotional development. Teacher "scaffolding" of peer play needs to be subtly responsive not only to present level of toddler cognitive competence but to the emotional needs of toddlers to learn to express their own wishes and make their own choices.

Sometimes adults need to try ways to validate the positive quality of one toddler's social bid when the recipient may not be aware of politeness scripts that social situations require. Such modeling may be one way that caregivers can create a positive climate even when a brief bid has not been responded to by a toddler just learning the rules of how to recognize and respond to positive social bids.

Nurit watches Feng and Hanna playing at the water table. Feng looks up at Nurit and goes over to give her a flower pot, that she silently takes from him. The caregiver says: " You are giving Nurit the flower pot. Thank you, Feng," as he walks back to engage in more water play.

Did toddlers change their strategies when one bid did not seem to work? In half of the bids tallied in this study, toddlers attempted to gain social entry with only one strategy. Two to six strategies were used by toddlers during the other 76 events recorded as social initiations. In 45% of events, two or three strategies were used per bid. The use of four, five, or six strategies was exceedingly rare. Of the initial strategies used, 34% involved proximal contact, 52% involved the use of language, and 14% involved distal contact.

Joel watches Shoshannah busy in the housekeeping area as she moves between sink and table with dishes to set the table. Joel smiles, sucks his thumb, and continues to watch Shoshannah silently.

Some toddlers may wish to engage with a peer in a play activity, but their entry skills are in short supply. So they engage primarily as onlookers. When should a caregiver "assist" an onlooker to try a more-likely-to-succeed strategy? Language can be used as a "bridge" for non-verbal toddlers to help them realize their wishes and ways to implement those wishes. A teacher holding a young toddler's hand helps her to a seat in the play kitchen area she has looked at from afar. The caregiver remarks "I think Tessa might like some of the food you are cooking." This "bridge" helps the toddlers already at kitchen play to include Tessa in a "Pretend we are feeding the kids game." The teacher assists further by pointing out that when Tessa opens her mouth to receive the (pretend) food, she is showing how much she likes the other toddlers' cooking.

Another technique to prime onlookers by helping them learn potential scenarios for group entry bids is to read or tell stories where one bunny, for example, watches others passing a ball among themselves in the green grass and asks "Can I play too?" or announces "I like to play ball too." Some toddlers do not know the magic verbal or postural formulas by which to engage others. They stare on the outskirts of a longed-for activity; some disrupt peer play by toy snatching, although neither of these techniques will win them the coveted position of play partner.

In 58% of the 44 events where toddlers used a sequence of strategies in their entry bids, the toddlers used congruent strategies, such as one language bid followed by another language bid. In 2% of the sequences, a distal contact was followed by another distal contact; in 23%, proximal contact was followed by another attempt at proximal contact. Some of the proximal contacts were reciprocal imitations, a toddler favorite.

Andy is at one end of a cloth tunnel and Ofira is at the other end. Both peer into the tunnel. Ofira laughs as Andy moves through the tunnel. She goes over to the same entry to the tunnel where Andy went through, goes through the tunnel just as Andy did, and then moves away.

In 75% of the congruent sequences, a language strategy was followed by another language strategy. Despite the fact that adults tend to believe that language will more likely advance a peer play episode, sometimes the language bids used were greetings or invitations that did not lead to further peer play.

Jose approaches the playhouse where Al is inside. "It's Jose, it's Jose!'; Al greets him in a warm invitation to come in. Jose says "Hi'; but then immediately moves off toward the dramatic play area.

It may be difficult for toddlers to interpret verbal social markers as implicit invitations to engage in play together. Teachers need to make explicit the meaning of such rote social markers as "Hi". In one daycare, early in the morning, 23-month-old Rosie came running to the hallway every time she heard a parent bringing another toddler into the center. Rosie hugged each newcomer, smiled, and said "Hi" and then ran off to play.

"Rosie is our regular morning greeter," the teachers proudly explained. Yet none of them helped the greeted toddler to acknowledge the meaning of the generous hug. They might have said "Rosie is saying hello to you. She gave you a big hug to show she is so happy that you came to the daycare today. Rosie is your friend. Friends like to hug and play with each other." This theme, that friends play with each other could be echoed further during the day when caregivers and toddlers play ring-around-a-rosy or sit next to each other while filling pails with sand or pouring water into plastic tubs.

The lack of cognitive ability of some toddlers to recognize the signs of a friendly invitation means that caregivers need to be creative in labeling friendly gestures as clearly as possible for some toddlers.

Ari, holding a hat in hand, is at the sand table, where he is running toy train cars onto a sand track he has drawn with his fingers. He calls over to Jessie at the other end of the table, "Look at my train". Jessie walks over, looks instead at the hat in Ari's hand, then returns to where he had been standing at the other end of the sand table.

Simply reflecting what was intended and what was actually done could have helped Jessie distinguish between own wishes and other's wishes: "Jessie, you went to look at the hat in Ari's hand. He wants you to come see his train tracks in the sand. See, he is making tracks in the sand so his train can go on the tracks. Choo-choo-choo!" Chants and songs reorient toddlers whose interpretative skills are in short supply (Honig, 1993).

In the other 42% of events with sequences, toddlers varied their strategies (e.g. a distal contact was followed by a proximal contact) in order to gain entry to a peer interaction. For example, a toddler first watched a peer crayoning, then walked over very close to Maija at the art table. Maija offered him a red marker wordlessly; the toddler smiled, but then moved off without following through on Maija's bid to join in and color with her. The adult needs to state the toddler's intention: "Maija wants to share her Magic Markers with you. Maija would like you to color with her."

Kevin joined Car1 in the library corner and put pieces of puzzle in a board just as Car1 was doing. Kevin began singing "Twinkle, twinkle, IiLittletar", and Carl joined in singing imitatively and stayed at the table next to Kevin while continuing to put pieces on the board.

When teachers watch a successful use of a peer ploy such as singing in order to maintain pleasurable activity with a partner, the adult might: comment admiringly on how much "Carl loves to sing with you". Brief admiring teacher comments focus toddlers on successful aspects of their entry bids.

Outcomes of toddler social entry attempts

In about half of the 261 recorded peer responses, peers ignored a toddler's sociability bid.

Cal sits down at the art table where the toddlers are making collages. Rebecca reaches over and hands Cal a circle to paste. Cal does not accept the circle from her but picks one up from the table. Rebecca puts the circle she was offering him down in front of Cal, who continues not to respond. She returns to work on her own collage.

Toddlers who have not yet learned to recognize a positive social bid from a peer need a boost from an adult in order to conceptualize a social category such as "Peer offering help as a way of inviting you to join in social activity together." In other social bids for entry, the meaning of a toddler's bid may not be clear to the peer, and an adult's help may be necessary in order to clarify the message of a toddler's action as a request to engage in joint play. Particularly, a wordless toddler bid may need caregiver recasting.

Tolly sat on the bed of a wooden toy truck, ready to drive it. Noticing this, Natalie brought over a doll from the dramatic play area and placed her doll on the truck behind Tolly so that he could take her doll for a ride. When Tolly moved forward on the truck, the doll fell off, and Natalie silently took it back to the bed in the dramatic area.

It is notable that 38% of the toddlers' social bids were indeed accepted by peers. For example, Tina offered her hand to another toddler coming up the playscape steps. The peer accepted her hand, climbed up the steps and then sailed down the slide. However, toddlers who have learned a successful entry bid may still not know how to extend play through their social interactions.

Chino and Kaye are at the stove and sink. Benjy goes to the table in the housekeeping area and announces: "It's dinner time" as he sits down. While taking items from the toy refrigerator back to Benjy at the table, Kaye asks; "It's dinner time, Benjy?" Benjy then walks away to the bean bags in the block area, while affirming "It's dinner time."

The above episode illustrates that some toddlers have learned effective ways, perhaps through the use of a verbal stereotypic comment, in which to gain entry into group peer play. Nevertheless, they have not yet learned effective strategies that can sustain an initially successful bid or maintain a play bout.

In this study, toddlers rejected 32 (11%) of the peer entry bids.

Seated in the sandbox, Ari leaned over to Amy, who was holding several spoons in her hand, and requested of her "I need a spoon." Amy clutched the spoons without replying. After he had moved to play in another part of the sandbox, Amy went back to digging in the sand with the spoons.

The importance of an adult as a facilitator of toddler initiation bids is revealed in the data on toddler endings to their bids. In almost half (46%) of the events, a toddler ended the interaction with a peer by leaving the area and in 34% of the events the toddler remained in the area but ended the bid. Thus, associative and reciprocal play were rare outcomes of the initiation bid (5% and 1% respectively of events tallied).

Conclusions for caregiver training

These data suggest that trainers of infant/toddler caregivers need to emphasize techniques to enhance caregiver awareness of and effectiveness in helping peers engage in social entry. Adults can model simple actions or words that extend peer play bouts. Trainers may challenge caregivers to create verbal bridges that reflect toddler wishes, intentions, and play possibilities. Adult helpfulness advances the success of toddlers trying to engage in peer play but without the skills to do so successfully. One useful technique is to respond to the non-verbal body messages of toddlers by "talking for the body of the baby." For example, in the episode above with Natalie and Tolly, the teacher could note "Oh Tolly, you are such a good truck driver. Natalie would like you to take her baby doll for a gentle ride. Her baby doesn't like to get bounced around too much. Natalie wishes you would give her baby a special ride in your truck." Teachers who reflect toddler wishes and intentions in words promote toddler language skills as well as social play-entry skills.

Adults who decode the meaning of an ineffective toddler bid help toddlers find a more effective way to their social goals. For example, Tobie waved her drawing in front of Luella's face. Luella withdrew from the contact. Tobie did not know how to get her peer's social attention through a more acceptable bid.

When teachers create simple scenarios or arrange an interesting activity and invite toddlers to join in, toddlers' mutual interests more naturally lead to increased chances of positive social engagement and peer interactions. This use of the "Magic Triangle" technique (Honig,1982), where the event or activity rather than a person is the focus of the interaction, may prove a more successful strategy for encouraging toddler peer social initiatives than direct suggestions to a toddler that a peer be invited into play. Providing enough shovels and pails in a sand pile or arranging a big hunk of cornstarch glop on a table lures toddlers into enjoying an activity with peers. Sociability is more likely to occur then. Toddlers need to feel that they are in control in managing their social lives as they are beginning to gain control in communicating with words and as they are beginning to gain control over sphincters in toilet learning. Caregivers who are sensitive to toddler development in language and momotorkills need also to think creatively about meeting the challenge to enhance peer entry skills.

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