Understanding children's social interaction patterns is critical for their cognitive development; however, existing psychological studies often focus on dyadic interactions, overlooking the complexities of group dynamics. This study extends the concept of homophily—the tendency for individuals to interact with similar others—by exploring its implications within group settings. We introduce F-formations, a well-adopted notion from the computational field for detecting interaction groups in adults, which has yet to be extensively studied in children. By identifying this research gap, we aim to investigate how F-formations can be applied to children's social interactions.
Our case study was conducted in a preschool setting, specifically in the Starfish classroom, which includes children with hearing loss. Several key findings emerged from this study. First, we observed that F-formations can be detected in children's interactions, though some formations violate the definition of F-formations. Second, while the homophily effect was not evident in dyadic studies concerning children's hearing conditions, it was observed in group settings. We found that children prefer to form more homogeneous and smaller groups, with those who have hearing loss spending more time with peers who share similar characteristics. Overall, our results suggest that integrating group interaction data into traditional dyadic analyses provides valuable insights into children's social behavior, highlighting the importance of studying group dynamics alongside dyadic interactions.