Popularity, Decentering Ability, and Role-Taking Skills in Learning Disabled and Normal Children

Abstract

Twenty-nine learning disabled and 29 normal children were given impersonal and interpersonal tasks of decentering ability. In addition, 130 children, including 31 learning disabled children, were administered two sociometric tests—a sociogram and a social insight test. The learning disabled children were found to perform less well on the interpersonal decentering task, though no differences were found between them and their normal peers on the impersonal task of decentering ability. The sociometric testing indicated that the learning disabled children were less popular than their normal peers, but no less insightful about how others regarded them. No relationship between decentering ability and popularity was found.