The present paper deals with the study of interaction between institutionalized children in connection with their relation to the group of functional development. The study revealed that groups of children with typical development have higher average values of the total indicator of interaction as well as the values of the majority of interaction parameters (game involvement, initiation success, quality of group game, complexity and variety of game, maintaining the game, emotional regulation, following social rules, daily events awareness, positive strategies of entering the group, result of entering the peer group, strategies in solving conflict situations, etc.) in comparison with groups of children with special needs. There has been no evidence of the change in values in relation to the development level for such parameters as initiation goal, negative strategies of entering the group and strategies of situation control in a game. Using the technique of evaluating the interaction between children allows determining the success of a child in social interaction as well as identifying the children who need corrective work. The information obtained may be of interest for psychologists, educators and employees of orphanages with the aim of organizing more well-balanced interaction between children.