Comparison of anxiety disorders in children and adolescents with and without specific learning disorders: the interactive role of helicopter parenting

Document Type : Research Paper

Authors

1 Associate Professor, Department of Psychology, Faculty of Literature and Humanistic Sciences, Urmia University, Urmia, Iran

2 PhD Student of General Psychology, Department of Psychology, Faculty of Literature and Humanistic Sciences, Urmia University, Urmia, Iran

3 Associate Professor, Department of Psychology, Faculty of Literature and Humanistic Sciences, Malayer University, Malayer, Iran.

10.22098/jld.2024.14996.2166

Abstract

Objective: The purpose of the present study was to compare anxiety disorders in children and adolescents with and without Specific Learning Disorders (SLD) by examining the interactive role of helicopter parenting.
Method: The research method was causal-comparative. The population of the present study was children and adolescents(10-14 years old) of Malayer city who were diagnosed with a SLD (N=129). The sample size included 122 children and adolescents with SLD. Among the peers of these children, 122 people were matched as a control group based on age, educational level, and gender. The Screen for Child Anxiety Related Disorders (Birmaher et al., 1999) and the short form of the Helicopter Parenting Instrument (Pistella et al., 2020) were used to collect data. For data analysis, multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA) using SPSS-26 software was used.
Results: Children and adolescents with SLD received higher scores than their peers in physical and panic disorder, general anxiety symptoms, separation anxiety, social anxiety symptoms and school avoidance. This difference was greater when examining the interaction effect of SLD and helicopter parenting (p<0.05). In other words, the interactive effect size of SLD and helicopter parenting (between 0.32 and 0.36) was higher than the effect size of SLD alone (between 0.03 and 0.08).
Conclusion: The results showed that helicopter parenting played a role in increasing the severity of symptoms of anxiety disorders in children with SLD. It is suggested that the role of helicopter parenting in intensification the symptoms of anxiety disorders in children with SLD should be discussed.

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