513 Do children with disabilities have friends? Marina Louari, Marita Paparousi Teacher of Special Education, Assistant Professor University of Thessaly, Greece Abstract: The present study investigates the potentially of a friendship between a child with disability and his/her schoolmates. 73 students, 40 girls and 33 boys, eleven years old take part in the intervention. The typical students’ attitudes towards a student with disability examined by a questionnaire. The material was the attitudes questionnaire, a child’s literature book and writing activities. The results showed that typical students had at first more positive attitudes in the possibility of having a friend with disability, but after the intervention a negative change was noticed. Introduction The social psychologists conceptualize friendship as social acceptance. The developmental psychologists consider it as a reflection of children’s cognitive and language development, a rudimentary type of sociability which emerges from the infancy (as social look and gestures, smile toward a familiar person and vocalization), the ability to refer their best friends’ name during pre-school age and the reasons which make them to prefer a certain person than the others, in order to be friends each other (Parker, Rubin, Price, & DeRosier, 1995; Price & Ladd, 1986 in Buysse, Goldman & Skinner, 2002). As far as concern the ethnography, the anthropologists consider the friendship the fundamental element of children’s life, because children have the potential to enhance their social participation through friendships, to resolve controversies and achieve harmony and social equality and construct their social identity among their peers (Corsaro & Miller, 1992; Deegan, 1996 in Buysse, Goldman & Skinner, 2002). In spite different theoretical aspects, the experience approves that even if the very young children can develop mutual friendships. The friendship development, from the early years of children’s life, is a major factor for their normal development (Berndt, 1982, Meyer, Park, Grenot – Scheyer, Schwartz, & Harry, 1998 in Geisthardt & Cook, 2002), as it contributes to cognitive development and enhances children’s conceptual and language development (Gresham & Reschly, 1987; Falvey & Rosenberg, 1995; Guralnick, Connor, & Hammond, 1995; Grenot-Scheyer, Staub, Peck, & Schwartz, 1998). It offers specific social and emotional benefits, as well as increasing the pro-social behaviour and helps to bring about the development of security and communication and promotes not only the social interaction but generally the welfare and equanimity (Costin & Jones, 1992; Siperstein et all. 1997; Bukowski & Sandberg, 1999). In contrary, the absence of social interaction and the lack of friendships results in loneliness and isolation (Guralnick et all.; Parker & Asher, 1987, 1993; Turnbull & Ruef, 1997). Friendship and disability In spite of what has been cited about the importance of interaction among children, the researchers have not achieved a common acceptable framework, so that they could understand the relations which existed among children and using this understanding, they achieve to help children, who confront difficulties in forming and reservation of a friendship. Specially, a lot of studies have examined the existence of friendship and the interaction among peers in school settings (Guralnick, 1999). Considering that children usually form not formal relations, it is difficult someone to distinguish the mutual friendship from the acceptance. These relations often reveal the child’s social