The Effects Of Participation In A Group To Eliminate Self Defeating Behaviors On Self Concept And Locus Of Control Of Learning Disabled Adolescents

Author : Jessica E. Martin
Publisher :
ISBN 13 :
Total Pages : 334 pages
Book Rating : 4.:/5 (299 download)

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Download or read book Examining an Adolescent Female Empowerment Group with a Learning Disabled Population written by Jessica E. Martin and published by . This book was released on 2007 with total page 334 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Many developmental theorists have described adolescence to be a vital component for healthy adult functioning. In particular, research has identified critical areas for female development to include gender role socialization, body image acceptance, peer relationship development, understanding sexuality, and overall self-concept. LeCroy & Daley (2001) developed a promising gender-specific prevention intervention, the "Go Grrrls Program", which targets these critical areas for adolescent female development. A review of literature identified that adolescents with learning disabilities (LD) are faced with compounding difficulties in academic and social domains (Bryan, 2005). Few developmentally appropriate interventions exist that addressed the difficulties in social domains of self-competency, peer relationships, and social competency for LD youth (Hutchinson et al., 2004). The purpose of this study was to evaluate the effectiveness of a developmentally appropriate, gender-specific intervention, LeCroy and Daley's (2001) "Go Grrrls Program", in learning disabled sample. A multiple baseline design across participants was used to examine the hypotheses that group participation would produce positive gains in body image satisfaction, feelings of attractiveness, assertiveness, gender role efficacy, self-liking, self-competence, accessing resources, and hopelessness, as evident by self-, parent-, and dorm parent-reports. Contrary to expectations, participating adolescents appeared to display minimal to no change across most outcome measures. Tentative small positive findings were found for self-reported assertiveness skills and dorm parent rated self-liking, which indicate a need for further research. Possible explanations for the lack of reliable findings include measurement issues, design implementation, complexity of diagnoses, and concurrent exposure to a rich therapeutic environment. Further research may include a re-evaluation of the study hypotheses with a study design that will allow for more statistical control over extraneous variables and continued examination of the outcome measure's psychometric properties.