Reading, Literacy & Learning Annual International Dyslexia Association (IDA) Conference (San Antonio, TX)
Dr. Caroline G. Richter chaired a symposium at Reading, Literacy & Learning Annual International Dyslexia Association (IDA) Conference, San Antonio, TX in November 2022. The symposium was about Socio-emotional challenges in learning disorders. Dr. Fumiko Hoeft, Dr. Robert Hendren, Dr. Stephanie Al Otaiba, and Rebecca Kockler were part of the symposium. Dr. Richter’s presented a paper on Stigma and Stereotype Threat for Individuals with Specific Learning Disabilities. See her presentation here.
During her talk, Dr. Richter discussed how individuals with specific learning disabilities (SLD) experience more negative socioemotional outcomes than their peers, including lower self-esteem and increased mental health problems. Academic and socioemotional adjustment difficulties can persist into adulthood if left unaddressed. Two potential contributors to these less optimal socio-emotional outcomes include stigma and stereotype threat. Stigma is characterized by negative beliefs about an individual based on a certain characteristic. SLD diagnosis is stigmatizing, considering the labels disorder and disability that can imply some level of inherent weakness. Stereotype threat is a more constricted construct, that relates to a specific situation in which an individual fears confirming those negative beliefs. The results of this systematic review demonstrated that individuals with SLD are vulnerable to stigmatization. In addition, having greater SLD stigma is associated with having lower self-esteem and less optimal psychological adjustment, including greater anxiety and depression, lower academic performance, lower adaptive coping, lower self-efficacy, lower quality of life, and lower school belonging.
