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Language disorders and learning disabilities in school-refusing adolescents
M W Naylor1, M Staskowski, M C Kenney
1Northwestern University Medical School, Chicago, IL 60611.
Objective:
We undertook this study to test the hypothesis that school-refusing adolescents hospitalized on an inpatient psychiatric unit have more language and learning disabilities than diagnosis-, age-, and sex-matched psychiatric controls.
Method:
The Woodcock-Johnson Tests of Achievement-Revised (WJTA-R), the WISC-R, the Adolescent Language Screening Test, the Clinical Evaluation of Language Fundamentals-Revised, and the Test of Language Competence (TLC) were given to a group of well-characterized, primarily depressed school refusers and matched psychiatric controls.
Results:
We found that school-refusing adolescents had significantly lower WISC-R verbal intelligence scores, lower Math and Written Language subscale scores on the WJTA-R, and lower scores on the TLC than nonrefusers. School refusers were found to have a significantly higher incidence of both language impairments and learning disabilities than controls.
Conclusions:
We infer that academic and communicative frustration and the adolescent's resulting inability to meet the academic and social demands in the school environment may play a role in the etiology of school refusal.