Abstract
Background & Objectives: Specific learning disorder is one of the most common neurodevelopmental disorders of childhood that has severely affected the lives of many children around the world. There is growing evidence that a particular problem associated with learning disabilities is low academic well–being. Most children with learning disabilities face more difficulties regulating their emotional functions, especially the perception of control over their anxiety, and they are less able to identify, accept, and express their emotions. Therefore, it seems that focusing on this problem in promoting the well–being education of these children can work. One of these emotion–focused treatment methods is teaching the emotion regulation process, and research about this program's effectiveness in various fields has been promising. However, the above program has not been used in the academic well–being of students with specific learning disabilities. Therefore, the present study was conducted to determine the effectiveness of emotional process discipline training on the academic well–being of students with specific learning disorders.
Methods: This quasi–experimental research employed a pretest–posttest design with experimental and control groups. The statistical population of the research included female students with learning disabilities studying in the elementary schools of Khalkhal City, Iran, in the academic year of 2023–2024. Of whom, 30 eligible volunteer students who met the inclusion criteria were selected by the available sampling method. Then, they were divided into two groups, experimental and control (15 people in each group). The selection method was as follows. One school was randomly selected from five girls' elementary schools. Then, in collaboration with a group of psychologists specializing in the field of learning disorders, a screening test was conducted in this school, and children with definite symptoms of learning disorders and weakness in neuropsychological skills were diagnosed. The inclusion criteria were as follows: the children were normal according to the Wechsler Intelligence Test (IQ 95–120). Also, the two groups were homogenous regarding gender (both groups were girls), educational level (both groups were sixth grade), parental education, and family socioeconomic status, and not suffering from other psychological, behavioral, or emotional disorders. The exclusion criteria were not consenting to participate in the research process, receiving the same psychological intervention simultaneously, and missing more than three training sessions. The tools used in this research were the Colorado Learning Difficulties Questionnaire (Wilcott et al., 2011) and the Academic Well–being Scale (Tominin–Sweeney et al., 2012). The Gross (2015) training program for process regulation was implemented during 10 sessions of 90 minutes only for the experimental group. The obtained data were analyzed using SPSS 27 software at two levels of descriptive (mean and standard deviation) and inferential (univariate covariance analysis) statistics. The significance level in statistical tests was 0.05.
Results: The results showed that the effect of emotional process regulation training on improving the academic well–being of the experimental group was significant after removing the pretest effect (p=0.004). Also, 26.4% of the changes in academic well–being in the posttest phase were explained by receiving emotional process regulation training.
Conclusion: In total, the results of this research showed that teaching the process of emotion regulation is effective in improving the academic well–being of students with specific learning disorders. Therefore, the use of this program in schools and specialized clinics for exceptional children is recommended.
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