Depression, Anxiety, and Attributional Style in Learning-Disabled and Non-Learning-Disabled Children

Abstract

Investigated depression, anxiety, and attributional style in learning-disabled (LD) and non-LD children. Subjects included 11 children who were new to an LD class, 20 who had been in LD classes for more than 1 year, and a control group of 31 non-special-education children matched to the first two groups with respect to age and sex. Contrary to predictions, children recently assigned to an LD program did not score higher in depression, anxiety, or maladaptive attributional style than those children accustomed to the special-education setting. There were, however, significant differences between the combined LD groups and the, control group in both anxiety and peer-nominated depression.