Social support, school achievement and social competencies in adolescents with disabled siblings

Abstract

This research is focused on correlation-comparative analysis of school achievement, social support and social competencies in adolescents with a disabled sibling (physical disability, neurodevelopmental disease, or other) and adolescents with a non-disabled sibling. We used the CASSS (Malecki and Demaray, 2002), the SSI (Riggio et al., 1993) and the average of school marks received on the last year-end report. 69 adolescents with a disabled sibling and 63 adolescents with a non-disabled sibling, aged from 14 to 20 (M= 16.77; SD=1.615) participated in the study. The results indicate a significant positive relationship between the school achievement of adolescents with a disabled sibling and their social support from their parents, and also between social support from parents and the social sensitivity of adolescents with a disabled sibling. Furthermore, we have proven significantly worse school achievement in adolescents with a disabled sibling.