The Effectiveness of Skills Training Based on Social Information Processing Model on Social Competence of Female Students with Special Learning Disability

Most children with special learning disabilities experience a variety of social problems at school. Repetition of negative experiences in the classroom and improper interaction with peers provide emotional and behavioral problems that lead to decreased social competence in students. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to investigate the effectiveness of skills training based on the social information processing model to improve the social competencies of students with special learning disabilities. This research was a Semi- experimental study with a pretest-posttest design with a control group. The research population included all elementary girl students with a special learning disability (first to fourth grades) in Abarkooh city (Yazd Province) in the academic year 1398. From the target population, 16 students were selected as a sample using the available sampling method and were randomly divided into two (experimental 8 people and control group 8 people). The research tool was the 47-item social competence questionnaire of Flener, Lease & Philips (1990). After the pre-test, the intervention program Based on Dodge's (1993) Social Information Processing Model for 14 sessions was implemented for the experimental group. Post-test was performed for both groups after the intervention. To analyze the data, univariate and multivariate analysis of covariance was used to test the research hypotheses. The results showed that training based on the social information processing model was in increasing the social competence of students with special learning disabilities at a level of 0.001. In general, the results of this study showed the efficiency of the social information processing model in increasing the social competence of students with special learning disabilities.