EXPLORING CHILDRENS RESPONSES TO INTERPERSONAL CONFLICT USING BUBBLE DIALOGUE IN A MAINSTREAM AND EBD SCHOOL

This paper discusses an investigation of the use of a computer applica tion, Bubble Dialogue, to construct a narrative which reflects the chi ld's view of the world. In particular it reports on a comparative stud y of how a group of children with emotional and behavioural difficulti es and children who attend a mainstream school use Bubble Dialogue to express themselves and the strategies used by the children to resolve interpersonal conflicts. The results show that both groups of children were able to make good use of the thought/speech distinction which is a special feature of Bubble Dialogue, and both groups made disclosure s, but there were differences in the type of disclosures made. Analysi s of conflict resolution strategies revealed that both groups could us ed a range of strategies but the pattern of preference differed betwee n the groups. In particular the children with emotional and behavioura l difficulties issued more orders and resorted to physical aggression, It is suggested that Bubble Dialogue may therefore be a good tool for practitioners to use to reveal children's perspectives and also for t he children themselves to rehearse more appropriate and effective conf lict resolution strategies. (C) 1998 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.