A comparative study of the personality characteristics of primary-school students with learning disabilities and their nonlearning disabled peers

This study examined the personality characteristics of 180 boys and girls of ages 8, 9, and 10 with learning disabilities (LD) in 3rd, 4th, and 5th grade in urban and rural primary schools of Andhrapradesh, India. The subjects were identified based on their scholastic achievement on a spelling dictation test, an oral reading test, a reading comprehension test and an arithmetic test developed specifically for the purpose, along with mental ability tests - Raven's Standard Progressive Matrices and Draw-A-Man. An adapted version of the Children's Personality Questionnaire (CPQ) was administered to the subjects with LD and a comparison group of children without learning disabilities (NLD). Examination of scores obtained by LD and NLD subjects on the CPQ portrays the LD child as having problems in social and emotional adjustment. Further, the older LD children tended to show a more maladaptive behavioral disposition than the younger, and there was a significant gender effect among LD children.