Effectiveness of Social Skills Training on Social Anxiety Disorder in Students with Learning Disabilities

Abstract

Background: Children with learning disabilities (LDs) may be at risk of social anxiety because they are less socially accepted and more anxious than their peers. Approximately 70% of students with LDs experience a high level of anxiety symptoms, and they have clinical symptoms of anxiety more than their peers. Objectives: This study aimed to determine the effectiveness of social skills training on social anxiety disorder in students with LDs. Methods: This randomized controlled trial study included a pretest-posttest control group. Data were collected using Structured Clinical Interview for Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders Fifth Edition (SCID-5), Spence Children’s Anxiety Scale (SCAS), and Matson Evaluation of Social Skills with Youngsters (MESSY). In total, 30 participants with diagnosed LDs and high social anxiety were randomly assigned to intervention and control groups. The intervention group received a social skills treatment over 12 sessions of 90 minutes. After collecting the data, SPSS version 24 was used with 95% CI for data analysis. The Levene test was used to assess the equality of variances, and analysis of covariance (ANCOVA) employed to assess the main effect of social skills intervention. Results: The results of the ANCOVA test showed that social skills training reduced social anxiety in the intervention group (P < 0.01). The covariate (pretest of anxiety) was also significant (P < 0.01). Conclusions: This study showed that social skills training could reduce social anxiety in children with LDs. This result can be a guideline for clinicians to provide the appropriate intervention for the emotional problems of students with LDs.