Promoting social skills and friendships in early childhood education: A case study of four children’s trajectories to inclusion

This paper reports on the changes reported on the social relations and skills of four children after the implementation of ProFriend (Promoting Friendship) in an early childhood education (ECE) setting. ProFriend is a programme developed considering the inclusive ECE principles by targeting all children’s access and participation and looking beyond imposed labels. The data of the study included friendship nominations, observations, children’s drawings, teachers’ interviews and research diary. The findings shed light on four children’s trajectories who faced challenges in forming friendships and whose individual characteristics (speech and language impairments and socio-emotional difficulties) were seen by teachers as barriers to their social development. The discussion focuses on how children’s exclusion can be minimised by enriching ECE curricula with some elements guiding teachers on how to approach the development of social skills and friendships in a meaningful and inclusive way.