Learning Disabilities and Delinquency: The (Non-)mediating and (Non-)moderating Role of Peer Deviance

Abstract

This study assesses the role of peer deviance in the relationship between learning disabilities and violence and property crime. Two possibilities are explored: (a) that youths with a learning disability tend to have more deviant peers which in turn increases delinquent involvement (a mediating effect) and (b) that youths with a learning disability are more strongly influenced by the deviance of their peers (a moderating effect). We draw on the causality literature and employ a causal directed acyclic graph. Using data from the first two waves of the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent to Adult Health ( N = 6,391), we find results that are not in line with either possibility. While adolescents with learning disabilities are shown to exhibit higher levels of violence (but not property crime), peer deviance is not found to play either a mediating or a moderating role. We recommend future work test alternative mediating pathways, such as through victimization and self-control.