Dr. Richter, Alecia Mercier, and Bri Stein volunteered at The Exceptional Foundation’s Chili Cook-Off, to support their largest annual event.
March 2023
December 2022
Our lab members presented at the Fall 2022 UAB Undergraduate Research Expo:
Dahlman, A.*, Richter, C. G., Siegelman, N., Mahaffy, K., Bunt, M. van den, Kearns, D. M., Landi, N., Sabatini, J., Pugh, K., & Hoeft, F. (2022, November). The impact of computer-assisted technology on literacy acquisition during COVID-19-related school closures: Group-level effects and predictors of individual-level outcomes. Poster presented at UAB Expo.
- Alison Dahlman was the 2nd Place Winner of the in-person Fall Expo 2022 in the Social and Behavioral Science category.
Redden, K. B.*, Coffey, L.*, Richter, C. G. (2022, November). Stereotype and stigma interventions and future avenues in individuals with specific learning disabilities. Poster presented at UAB Expo.
November 2022
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.
