PROCESSING DEFICITS AND SOCIAL FUNCTIONING OF LEARNING DISABLED CHILDREN (COGNITION, ROLE TAKING)

• Main Author: GINSBURG, MITCHELL MARC
• Format: Dissertation
• Language: English
• Published: ProQuest Dissertations & Theses 01-01-1985
• Subjects: Clinical psychology; Psychotherapy
• ISBN: 9798762124645

This study compared the affective role taking skills of two groups of learning disabled boys, language and spatial-perceptual learning disabled, and a non-disabled control group. This was done to develop a better understanding of the processes involved in social cognition, as well as provide increased support for the efficacy, when designing research, of subdividing groups of learning disabled children on the basis of processing strengths and weaknesses. Fifty-four fifth and sixth grade boys were tested on two measures of affective role taking. The first measure involved labeling emotions based on visual and verbal cues. The second tested the subjects' ability to infer the emotions of another person who was involved in an interaction. These interactions were presented on videotape using three cue presentation modes: combined verbal and visual cues, verbal cues alone, and visual cues alone. Behavior problems were also measured using ratings by teachers. Results indicated that learning disabled children generally had greater difficulty than non-disabled children on measures of affective perspective taking. They were less able to infer the emotional state of another person, and also tended to respond to stimuli more impulsively, failing to consider all available information. This was especially true for children with language learning disabilities. In addition, both groups were found to have more internalizing and more externalizing behavior problems than the control group. These results help explain the significant social problems experienced by learning disabled children. They suggest that verbal language skills and attention are important mediating mechanisms for social cognitive performance. The findings are discussed with respect to treatment implications and future research directions.