The Relationship between Learned Helplessness and Social skills among Students with Learning Disabilities in the Primary Stage

Abstract

This study aimed to investigate the relationship between learned helplessness and social skills among students with learning disabilities at primary stage in Taif. A random sample of 149 male and 49 female grades four and five students with learning disabilities in reading and mathematics was selected. The researcher used two scales the learned helplessness scale by (Sorrenti, Filippello, Costa and Buzzai, 2014) and the social skills scale by (Danielson and Phelps, 2003). The results showed that females of learned helplessness (20.40%) were higher than males (12.08%). The results revealed that there is a statistically significant negative correlation between learned helplessness and social skills. There are statistically significant differences between males and females in the degrees of learned helplessness in favor of females. Also, the results show that there are statistically significant differences between males and females in the scores of social skills in favor of females. However, there are no statistically significant differences between those with reading disabilities and those with mathematics learning disabilities in the degrees of learning helplessness. Moreover, there are no differences between those with reading disabilities and those with mathematics learning disabilities in the second dimension of the social skills scale (acceptance and admiration of others) and the third dimension (social naivety). However, there are differences between those with reading disabilities and those with mathematics learning disabilities in the first dimensions and the total score of the social skills scale in favor of those with mathematics learning disabilities.