Teacher Perceptions of Social Behavior in Learning Disabled and Socially Normal Children and Youth

Abstract

Several writers have argued that teacher perception of the behavior of students affects the interaction between teacher and student. This study attempted to determine if teachers perceive a difference between learning disabled and socially normal students in terms of interpersonal behavior. A total of 534 subjects between the ages of 8 and 15 classified as either learning disabled (LD) or socially normal (SN) were assessed using the Social Performance Survey Schedule. Data analysis included the MANOVA and one-way analysis of variance. The MANOVA indicated differences at the .000 level by category between the LD and SN groups on the positive subscale and on the negative subscale. There were also differences at the .000 level by sex on the positive subscale. There was one significant interaction, on the negative subscale, between sex and category at the .01 level. A one-way ANOVA was used as a follow-up on the MANOVA to identify the individual items contributing to the differences found by the MANOVA. On the positive subscale, 42 items were significantly different between LD and SN males, and 33 items were significantly different between LD and SN females. On the negative subscale, 20 items were significantly different between LD and SN males, and 35 items were significantly different between LD and SN females. The results indicated that SN subjects were perceived as having significantly more prosocial behavior and significantly less antisocial behavior than LD subjects. Further, female subjects were perceived as having significantly more prosocial behavior than males. There was no significant difference between males and females in antisocial behavior. Finally, there was one significant interaction. The analysis indicated that there was a highly significant difference perceived between SN and LD females in favor of the SN females. Implications of the findings are discussed.