Abstract
<p>Special Learning Disabilities (SLD) are often accompanied by negative thoughts of self-assessment, deficits in social interactions and psycho-emotional problems as well, which hinder the development and the smooth integration of children diagnosed with SLD into their environment. This research attempts to investigate the association of negative self-assessment thoughts and anxiety disorders with Special Learning Disabilities in a sample of sixty Greek-speaking children in 4th, 5th and 6th grades with and without SLD, including their parents. The tools used for this purpose are the Children’s Automatic Thoughts Scale (CATS), and the Spence Children’s Anxiety Scale (SCAS-CH) self-report questionnaire, which assess anxiety disorders. Parents were asked to answer the corresponding Spence Children’s Anxiety Scale-Parents Edition (SCAS-P) symptom-monitoring questionnaire. According to the results compared to their normal development peers, children with SLD had a higher incidence of negative thoughts, which is more likely to lead to symptoms of anxiety disorders; their parents in fact were able to perceive the severity or frequency of these symptoms in their children. In addition, the frequency of negative thoughts and symptoms related to anxiety disorders seemed to be influenced by the student’s condition (with or without SLD), but not by gender and age. </p><p> </p><p><strong> Article visualizations:</strong></p><p><img src="/-counters-/edu_01/0982/a.php" alt="Hit counter" /></p>
Highlights
In recent years more and more researchers (Swanson, Zheng, Jerman, 2009 & Mather, Gregg, 2006) propose a more complex approach to the identification and diagnosis of Special Learning Disabilities (SLD), which focuses on deficit observation in one or more cognitive areas: reading; written form of language; or mathematics by avoiding alternative explanations for this deficit
Regarding the first research question "Is the appearance of anxiety symptoms and anxiety problems related to SLD?", due to the answers of the Greek-speaking students with SLD who filled in the SCAS-CH questionnaire, it was found the following: they appear to have a higher incidence of symptoms related to Panic / Agoraphobia, Separation Anxiety, Social Phobia, Fear of Physical Injury, Obsessive / Compulsive Disorder and Generalized Anxiety Disorder, compared to their peers without similar difficulties
The results of the present study are in full agreement with previous research, which emphasize that the psycho-emotional and social profiles of students with SLD, their negative experiences in the school environment, and their intense and arduous efforts to keep up with school, are related with a state of intense stress (Nelson & Harwood, 2011; Lipscomb et al, 2012; Visser et al, 2020)
Summary
In recent years more and more researchers (Swanson, Zheng, Jerman, 2009 & Mather, Gregg, 2006) propose a more complex approach to the identification and diagnosis of SLD, which focuses on deficit observation in one or more cognitive areas: reading (decoding, fluency, understanding); written form of language (basic skills, fluency, utterance); or mathematics (basic skills, efficiency, application) by avoiding alternative explanations for this deficit (e.g. cognitive damage, or lack of education opportunities). In this research the term Special Learning Difficulties will be used adopting the suggestion of Kavale, Spaulding & Beam (2009) in defining learning disabilities / disorders as follows: “SLD refers to heterogeneous clusters of disorders that significantly impede the normal progress of academic achievement in 2%- 3% of the school population. According to the international literature (American Psychiatric Association, 2013; Margari, Buttiglione, Craig, Cristella, de Giambatista, Matera, Operto & Simon, 2013) the most probable percentage of people facing SLD is mentioned to be 5% to 15% of the school population. The most difficulties appear in language courses at a percentage that reaches up to 80% of all children with SLD (Triga-Mertika, 2010)
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