Nonverbal social interaction skills of children with learning disabilities.
Many children with learning disabilities (LD) face problems in their nonverbal communication, which constitutes an important component of their social skills. This study explores the frequency of nonverbal initiations and responses of 36 children with LD and 36 children without LD matched for age and gender, who were observed for 40 min during the break. Younger and older children with and without LD did not differ significantly in their nonverbal responses, but there was a statistically significant difference in terms of younger children's nonverbal initiations. Younger children with LD exhibited significantly fewer nonverbal initiations than younger children without LD. Findings are discussed and suggestions are made for further research.
Agaliotis
Ioannis
I
University of Macedonia, 156 Egnatia Street, P.O. Box 1591, 540 06 Thessaloniki, Greece. iagal@uom.gr
Kalyva
Efrosini
E
D000223:Adaptation, Psychological; D002648:Child; D002652:Child Behavior; D003144:Communication Barriers; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007859:Learning Disabilities / Q000523:psychology*; D008297:Male; D009633:Nonverbal Communication / Q000523:psychology*; D012919:Social Behavior