Interpretation of Pictorially Presented Social Situations by Learning Disabled and Normal Children

Abstract

The responses of learning disabled and normal children to a social inference task were compared. In individual interviews children were asked to interpret pictures of social situations. For some stimulus pictures children were asked to determine antecedents and predict consequences of the event. The LD children showed deficits in interpretation of the situation and determining consequences. No differences were found between groups in determining antecedents. Results are related to the cognitive and attentional deficits of LD children.

Recognition, Expression, and Understanding Facial Expressions of Emotion in Adolescents With Nonverbal and General Learning Disabilities

“…Bruno (1981) found boys with LD aged 9 to 16 years made more errors in their interpretations of pictorially presented social situations and in predicting the causality of the situations as compared to boys without LD. In another study, Pearl and Cosden (1982) using television clips observed more misinterpretations of the social interactions among children with LD as compared to their NLD peers.…”

“…In general, children with LD have been found to be less accurate at interpreting social situations (Bruno, 1981;Pearl & Cosden, 1982), have been shown to do worse on measures of role/perspective taking (Bryan, 1991;Dickstein & Warren, 1980;Wong & Wong, 1980), and have been found to be less competent at social problem solving compared to their NLD peers (Carlson, 1987;Oliva & LaGreca, 1988). Studies examining these abilities in adolescents with LD have found similar results.…”

A Research Review and Alternative Hypothesis Explaining the Link Between Learning Disability and Delinquency

“…Indeed, investigators have pointed out that youth with learning disabilities have difficulties, compared to nonhandicapped peers, in a variety of cognitive social problem-solving skills such as interpreting the mood or communications of others (e.g., Lerner, 1981), generating and choosing quality social solutions (e.g., , predicting and evaluating social consequences (e.g., Bruno, 1981;, interpreting situations (e.g., Pearl & Cosden, 1982), taking the perspective of others (e.g., Bachara, 1976), and controlling impulsive behavior (e.g., Hallahan, Kauffman, & Lloyd, 1985). Schumaker and her colleagues found that NLD adolescents scored significantly better on social cognitive problem solving than LD and delinquent youth, who scored similarly.…”

Knowledge, Perception, and Performance of Assertive Behavior in Children with Learning Disabilities

“…This is crucial because children with learning disabilities may fail to recognize that behaviors that are acceptable and appropriate in self-contained classrooms partially cause their social rejection by peers in other environments. Given research indicating social perception deficits in children with learning disabilities (Bruno, 1981;Bryan, 1977;Dickstein & Warren, 1980;Horowitz, 1981;Wiig & Harris, 1974), training children to discriminate between circumstances in which different types of assertive and nonassertive communications will lead to gains and/or losses of reinforcement should be stressed (Lange & Jakubowski, 1976;MacDonald, 1975). Since poor peer relations in childhood are related to serious adjustment problems in later life (Combs & Slaby, 1977;Cowen, Pederson, Babigian, Izzo, & Trost, 1973;Horn, O'Donnell, & Vitulano, 1983;Pihl & McLarnon, 1984), future research should aim to train children to employ assertion skills in a manner that increases their chances of being liked by peers.…”