Attributional style of children with and without Specific Learning Disability

Introduction. The literature highlights that pupils with Specific Learning Disability (SLD) often reveal a poor meta-cognitive system, with low levels of attribution to internal factors like diligence and personal skills, and high levels of attribution to external factors like ease of task, luck or help from others.Method. This study aims to analyze the attributions expressed in the school context by pupils diagnosed with Specific Learning Disability (N=38; Age in months: Mean=100.24; SD=5.828) and to compare them with those by children without learning disabilities (N=70; 38 of them with the same academic achievements as the pupils with SLD, and 32 with opposite achievement levels). The instruments are the Attribution Test 4-10 years, nationally validated learning tests and the Student-Teacher Relationship Scale.Results. The analysis shows that just the pupils with SLD do not have an attributive style of the “strategic effort” kind, and, among them, the children that obtain the best scores in the nationally validated learning tests are the ones who least often, especially in cases of success, choose the ability factor and most often choose luck as the cause. Considering the teachers’ perceptions of the relationship between the pupils in the sample, the most significant score is related to Dependency: children with SLD are perceived far more dependent than their mates without SLD.Discussion and Conclusion. Results show that SLD do not cause a disadaptive attributive style but it causes an higher level of Dependency on the teacher; these children, in fact, do not have such a strong, stable attributive style with internal locus, and are inclined to attribute their results also to factors outside their own person. As a result, they seem not aware of their potential and search help even when it is not necessary.