Tomo Haske

Professor Campbell
UWRT 1103
November 11, 2015
School Kills Self Esteem
Tomo! Get in the god damn car, were going to be late again. What have you been doing
all this time? During my time in school, this was a common thing for me to hear from my
parents. I was tardy almost everywhere I went. While my tardiness could be attributed to a
number of different reasons, I find my poor concept of time to be the most pertinent. I would get
lost in the act of performing different everyday tasks. For example, brushing my teeth for fifteen
minutes. It was not until seventh grade that I received a psychoeducational evaluation and was
diagnosed with slow processing speed and ADHD. I learned that many people with slow
processing speed have no concept of time. Slow processing speed is one of many different
learning disabilities. After the diagnosis my daily school routine changed very little with the
exception of extended time on tests. There was talk between my parents and meI about switching
to the Key school which was a small program within my current school that provided different
teaching techniques for students with learning disabilities. I was against this option as soon as
they presented it,. pPrimarily because most students in this program had horrible social skills and
low self-esteem. Years later I reflected on this observation and began to question why the
majority of students with learning disabilities have problems with self-esteem and social skills. I
wanted to find outMy initial research question was; how do learning disabilities affect social
interaction among adolescents?

According to the 2012 census, 2.3 million children in the United States have documented
learning disabilities. If the situation regarding decreased social skills among students with
learning disabilities at my school wereas the same for students nationwide, then I considered this
to be a significant issue. It is also a relatively new concept to many. The definition of a learning
disability is a condition giving rise to difficulties in acquiring knowledge and skills. So right of
the bat we know that if not met with proper accommodations, a student with a learning disability
will perform lower in school than his or her non-disabled peers. Given the importance of school
performance in attending a good uUniversity and eventually receiving a good job, it is very
important that students with learning disabilities are recognized and provided the resources to
succeed. However, debatably more important than academic success are social skills and verbal
proficiency. Keld Jensen, contributor to Forbes writes, Research carried out by the Carnegie
Institute of Technology shows that 85 percent of your financial success is due to skills in human
engineering, your personality and ability to communicate, negotiate, and lead. Shockingly, only
15 percent is due to technical knowledge. Studies show that social skill has more influence
over financial and lifelongverbal proficiency has a much higher correlation to an individuals
lifelong success than does overall IQ or success in school. So if students with learning
disabilities have diminished social skills, then it is very important we look at two things. The first
is if this assumption is actually true, and the second is if the assumption is true then why is this
the case?.
In my initial research I stumbled upon a report from the National Association of Special
Education Teachers. The report informswas aimed at informing teachers on how to recognize
and accommodate for different learning disabilities. A portion of the report mentionsed,
Although not all children with LD have socialemotional problems, they do run a greater risk

than their nondisabled peers of having these types of problems. This information confirmed my
assumption regarding a link between having a learning disability and having social problems (i.e.
difficulty making friends or interacting with peers). The report went on to say, In the early years
they are often rejected by their peers and have poor self-concepts. As adults, the scars from years
of rejection can be painful and not easily forgotten. The report gives an explanation of why
students with learning disabilities run a greater risk of having social or emotional problems.
However, I wasnt satisfied with this answer. There was no evidence to support this reasoning
and it provided a very specific explanation that may not be entirely true for all conditions
classified as learning disabilities.
I was pleased to find The next source I found was much more promising. It was a peer
reviewed article from the Journal of Applied Social Psychology. The article reported the findings
of a study examining the overall self-esteem of adolescent students who are learning disabled,
emotionally disturbed, and students in regular education programs. The study consisted of 48
participants with a mean age of 16.4 years. Ten were enrolled in regular education, seventeen
classified as learning disabled, and twenty one were classified as emotionally disturbed. All
participants were evaluated by their perception of self-esteem in eight different domain specific
categories. The results were combined for each participant and used to determine a measure of
global self-esteem. The study found that global self-esteem of students classified as learning
disabled and emotionally disturbed were identical but significantly lower than that of regular
students. However, in further analysis of the data, the study showed that self-esteem of students
classified as learning disabled and emotionally disturbed differed from the regular education
students in only three areas. These areas were academics, social skills, and leadership ability.

This study shows that students with learning disabilities rank themselves lower in their social
abilities than their non-disabled peers.
In my preliminary research I found the report from the National Association of Special
Education Teachers. The report from the National Association of Special Education Teachers
answered my initial question of whether or not students with learning disabilities had diminished
social skills in comparison to their non-disabled peers. Judging by the audience of the report, this
information is already common knowledge at least among special education teachers. However,
this report did not provide much information. On the other hand, the review of the study
conducted on overall self-esteem of different students provided clear evidence of a link between
lower self-esteem in social ability and having a learning disability. The study investigated selfesteem in different categories. The three areas that were lower were all important areas but the
two that jumped out at me were for obvious reasons social ability but also academic ability. The
study also mentioned that all students placed higher importance on the categories that they were
more confident in.
In my research I found clear evidence that having a learning disability and placement into
a special education program has negative effects on self-esteem. THowever, the study also
showed that students placed higher importance on the categories that they were more confident
in. So having a learning disability definitely doesnt help with self-esteemsocial skills in
academics. However, whether or not this affects someones overall self-esteem depends on how
important they consider academia to bebut depending on what someone places more importance
on could in theory have very little effect. When we considerNow looking back at what I
mentioned earlier about the importance of social ability and verbal proficiency in determining an
individuals financial and lifelong success, it is perhaps more important for special education

systems to make sure that social wellbeing is not negatively affected. persons lifelong success.
And knowing that learning disabilities negatively affect self-esteem in academics. And because
of the importance placed on academics in our current system. Is there a better way to approach
special education so that it eliminates the possibledoesnt impairment of social ability?