LD and delinquency: rethinking the "link"

Longitudinal data from a 7-year prospective study was examined to investigate whether the presence of learning disabilities (LD) increases a youth's risk of becoming a juvenile delinquent. The sample included 515 students enrolled in the fifth grade in the fall of 1985, 51 (9.9%) of whom were youth with LD. Self-report data on delinquent activity were collected in the spring of 1993. Official court records were obtained for the years 1985 through 1992. Hierarchical multiple regression analyses were performed using a block of three demographic variables (gender, ethnicity, and socioeconomic status) as predictors in the first step and including LD status in a second step. Seven separate analyses were performed, using different measures of delinquency as criterion variables. In no case did LD status account for a significant portion of unique variance in the delinquency variables when the demographic variables were controlled for. The results of this study did not confirm the presence of a direct relationship between LD and delinquency and suggest that the finding of a direct relationship in other studies may have been due to confounding of the LD status with age, ethnicity, or socioeconomic status.