Journal of Exceptional Childre
Year:2006 | Volume:6 | Issue:2 (20)|Papers Count:6

Objective: This research studies the effect of narrative therapy on coping strategies of students with learning difficulties (LD). Method: For this experimental method, 20 students (10 girls, 10 boys) with LD (forth grade) were randomly assigned to experimental and control groups. The research design was pretest-posttest with control group. All students were evaluated by Children Coping Strategies Checklist (CCSC). Then narrative therapy was used for experimental group in 12 sessions (30 minutes for 4 weeks). The data were analyzed by repeated measures MANGVA. Results: The findings showed that narrative therapy could improve coping strategies in children with LD. Conclusion: Comparison of narrative therapy techniques in the fields of child psychotherapy could be challenging for investigations.

Objective: This study investigates the efficacy of psychodrama on the social behavior and self-esteem of elementary school students with dyslexia in Ardebil. Method: 31 male and female elementary fifth grade students with dyslexia were multi-stage cluster randomly selected. They were placed in two groups (experimental 16, control 15). 10 weekly structured sessions of psychodrama were conducted with experimental group. Results: The scores of (SBA) and (SE1) gained from the post-test indicate that the psychodrama has increased the subjects' social skills and self-esteem. Furthermore, the subscales analyses for the social skills inventory the results display that psychodrama had a significant effect on the interpersonal skills and task behavior, but not for the ego behaviors and educational environment behaviors. Conclusion: The application of psychodrama in schools is highly recommended to increase the students' social skills and self-esteem.

Objective: The objective of this descriptive and cross-sectional study was to classify and to determine the sort of the students spelling errors, and to study the Persian forms orthographic processing on the basis of linguistic and nonlinguistic information in children. Method: The sample was 85 students. The Garman's (1996) classification was used. This classification suggests that while spelling, children use their memory as well as their linguistic knowledge that might be orthographic, morphological, syntactic or semantic. An orthographic test comprising 246 "goal lexemes and phrases" and 20 dictations from the beginning, the middle and the end of the academic year was the instrument of the research. Results: the findings manifested that the most spelling error was for the letter level, and the least related to symbol level (e.g., gemination).Regarding the kind of errors, substitutions had the greatest percent. Besides, displacement, repetition and mixed forms had the least percent and were mostly nonlinguistic, and one can assume them as slips of the pen, like speech slips. At the language levels, the most percent of errors was for "lexeme" and the least was for the "syllable". Conclusion: Most dictation errors were linguistic and originated from the Persian writing system. Furthermore, the findings stress that children enjoy both linguistic information and the visual memory. Processing the orthographic forms which are produced by using linguistic information is easier for them than processing the forms produced by using nonlinguistic (visual) information.

Objective: This study has been conducted to determine the effect of life-skills training on the stress of mothers who have children with and without mental retardation (MR) Mobarak-e, Isfahan. Method: 60 mothers of MR children (out of 465 mothers), and 60 mothers of normal children (out of 13426 mothers) were randomly selected and assigned into two experimental and control groups. Through a quasi-experimental design, four groups were used. So that, 60 mothers of MR children were randomly divided into two groups of 30, and 60 mothers of normal children were randomly divided into two groups of 30. All groups were pre-tested. In the pretest, demographic characteristics and the level of stress were measured by demographic the researcher- made questionnaire and the Questionnaire on Resources and Stress Friedrick Form, respectively. Then, experimental groups were exposed to UNISEF Life-Skills Training in 10 Stages (32 sessions) and control groups did not receive any training. Data was analysis through covariance. Results: The results showed that there was a significant reduction in the level of mothers stress in the experimental groups (P<0.01). The results also displayed no significant difference in the level of mothers stress with MR and normal children. Conclusion: This study concludes that life-skills training can decrease the stress of mothers who have children with MR.

Objective: This study was conducted to investigate parenting styles and associated variables in families of adolescents with and without conduct disorder (CD).Method: We used a survey method to assess 120 parents (60 with and 60 without CD adolescents). For gathering the data, we administered Parenting Styles Questionnaire (Robins on, Mandleco, Olsen, & Hart, 2001), and DSM IV (1994) criteria, respectively for parenting styles and CD diagnosis. Results: The principal findings of the study were that the parents of adolescents with CD are less authoritative, and more authoritarian than the comparison group. No significant difference was found on permissiveness. Furthermore, the findings showed a significant relationship between parents' socioeconomic status (SES) with the disorder. Conclusion: These data would suggest that familial variables, especially parenting styles and SES are associated with CD. We discussed the clinical implications for etiology, prevention, and treatment.