Jurnal Learning Disorder dan Analisisnya

Nama  : Dedi Mulyana

NIM    : 1136000028

Analisis jurnal gangguan belajar pada anak

Judul

Strategi-strategi siswa sekolah tinggi dengan ketidakmampuan belajar: sebuah studi longitudinal kualitatif dan teori beralas

Latar belakang

Penelitian ini berangkat dari para siswa di Israel yang menghadapai ketidakmampuan belajar.

Tujuan

Tujuan dari penelitian ini adalah untuk mengeksplorasi emosional dan kognitif proses yang dialami oleh siswa SMA, baik verbal dan non-verbal dalam ketidakmampuan belajarnya, dan untuk mengidentifikasi strategi-strategi mereka dalam bekerja bekerja.

Subjek

Dipilih 20 siswa dari kelas sembilan yang telah didiagnosa mengalami ketidakmampuan belajar, subjek berusia sekitar 18 tahun.

Metodologi

Memakai wawancara semi-struktur dengan sifat terbuka dan fleksibel.

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International Journal of Qualitat

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Coping strategies of high school longitudinal qualitative study an

Sara Givon ^a;Deborah Court ^b

^a Jerusalem College, Jerusalem, Israel ^b Schoo Israel

First published on: 11 November 2009

To cite this Article Givon, Sara andCourt, Deborah(201 disabilities: a longitudinal qualitative study and g Education, 23: 3, 283 — 303, First published on: 11

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International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education

Vol. 23, No. 3, May–June 2010, 283–303

Coping strategies of high school students with learning disabilities: a longitudinal qualitative study and grounded theory

Sara Givon^a and Deborah Court^b*

^aJerusalem College, Jerusalem, Israel; ^bSchool of Education, Bar-Ilan University, Ramat Gan 52900, Israel

(Received 12 September 2008; final version received 21 September 2009)

The authors interviewed 20 Israeli high school students with learning disabilities over a three-year period to identify the students’ core coping strategies. Four emotional–cognitive strategies were identified: ‘Avoidance,’ ‘Rebellion,’ ‘Reconciliation,’ and ‘Determination.’ These strategies appeared in hierarchical order, leading to students’ integration of, acceptance of, and coming to terms with their difficulties. Interventions of early and accurate diagnosis of difficulties, accompanied by remedial teaching and social support, were important in the students’ developing effective coping styles. Results, in the form of a hierarchical continuum, provide a map within which school counselors and teachers may place their students’ current functioning, and help students progress toward coping strategies effective for attaining emotional and academic success.

Keywords: coping strategies; learning disabilities; grounded theory

Introduction

The educational system in Israel acknowledges the special needs of students with learning disabilities, and invests much effort and resources in their advancement. A central question in this field is whether to take care of the disability itself or to teach the students ways to bypass it. For many years it was assumed that learning disabilities disappear with age. Now it has become clear that this is not the case (Vogel 2007), since learning disabilities are generally caused by cognitive-neurological deficiencies (Geary 2004). Apart from minor improvements with maturity, the disability accompa-nies the individual throughout his or her whole life span (Gerber, Ginsberg, and Reiff 1992; Gerber 1994; Gregg, Hoy, and Gay 1996). Therefore, learning disabled students should be eligible to receive special dispensations and accommodations in learning and examination methods. In order to derive the maximum benefit from these accom-modations, there is a need to listen attentively to the voices of the students themselves, and to learn about their wishes, difficulties, and needs (Margalit, Efrati, and Danino 2002). This need is what drove the present study.

A learning disabled student, faced with the almost insurmountable challenge of achieving academic success (Heiman and Precel 2003; Martínez and Semrud-Clikeman 2004) within the confines of the school system, looks to teachers and

*Corresponding author. Email: debcourt@inter.net.il

Note: This manuscript was accepted by Young Chun Kim, QSE’s regional editor for Asia in September 2009.

ISSN 0951-8398 print/ISSN 1366-5898 online © 2010 Taylor & Francis

DOI: 10.1080/09518390903352343 http://www.informaworld.com

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284      S. Givon and D. Court

primary caregivers for guidance in this quest. Significant attention has been given to the extent, and cognitive aspects of various disabilities (Frith 1999), focusing on remediation, as well as increased awareness of the role that emotional characteris-tics play in achieving academic success (Einat 2000). Attempts at allocating resources and optimizing deployment of educational services and accommoda-tions, based on understanding factors that encourage or inhibit student success in matriculation examinations (Ellis and Siegler 1997; Ellis and Larkin 1998), have led researchers to ask: What emotional and cognitive resources do the students themselves recruit toward trying to meet the academic demands of obtaining a matriculation certificate?

When demands exceed an individual’s inner resources, the individual is in a state of ‘coping’ (Bailey, Barton, and Vignola 1999), as reflected in his or her ‘sustain-ing’ ability. Garmezy and Masten (1991) define ‘coping’ as the capacity to success-fully reach the stage of self-adjustment, in spite of challenging or threatening circumstances.

Purpose of the study

The purpose of the present study was to explore the emotional and cognitive processes experienced by high school students with both verbal and non-verbal learn-ing disabilities, and to identify coping strategies they employed. Results include a hierarchical continuum within which school counselors and teachers may identify students’ current functioning, and help students to progress toward coping strategies shown most effective in attaining emotional and academic success (Gerber 2005). Coping is placed within the context of the student’s progressive confrontation with his or her disability.

Research participants

A sample of 20 students with learning disability was chosen in their ninth grade school year, prior to the year in which the first data collection commenced. Choices were based on psychological and didactic tests, and the type of disability diagnosed, that is whether nonverbal learning disability (NLD) or verbal learning disability (VLD), and with or without attention deficit disorder (ADD) and/or attention deficit and hyperac-tive disorder (ADHD). Academic, social, and emotional histories also entered into the selection of the students. The sample ranged in age from 16 at first data point to 18 at the final data collection point. There were 10 girls and 10 boys. Table 1 below shows the research participants as they were diagnosed in four distinct sub-groupings of learning disabilities.

The young people were considered to be the experts on their own experience. The sample was a purposive sample, meaning that subjects were chosen on the basis of being able to give information about the topic for a range of disabilities connected with either NLD or VLD. This is in keeping with the tradition of qualitative research which does not practice random sampling.

There were five students in the first grouping, comprising those with VLD, plus a form of attention deficit, either ADD or ADHD. The second grouping had VLD with-out attention deficits; and the third sub-group comprised those with NLD, either on its own, or with added ADD or an attention deficit. The fourth sub-group all had an inte-grated set of mixed problems including VLD, NLD, and ADHD.

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Table 1.  Descriptive details of research participants.

	Fictitious		Socio-economic	Parental	First	Type of
No.	name	Sex	background	education	assessment	disability
Students with verbal learning disability – VLD + ADD/ADHD
1	Uri	Boy	Middle	Academic	5th grade	VLD + ADD
2	Martin	Boy	Lower	High school	10th grade	VLD + ADD
3	Nir	Boy	High	Academic	Nursery school	VLD + ADHD
4	Michal	Girl	Middle	Academic	Nursery school	VLD + ADHD
5	Adam	Boy	Middle	Academic	4th grade	VLD + HDHD
Students with verbal learning disability – VLD without attention deficit
1	Eli	Boy	Middle	High school+	8th grade	VLD
2	Aviad	Boy	Middle	Academic	6th grade	VLD
3	Ofra	Girl	High	Academic	10th grade	VLD
4	Sara	Girl	Low	10 years	10th grade	VLD
5	Odaya	Girl	High	Academic	9th grade	VLD

Students with non-verbal learning disability – NLD or verbal disability and attention deficit

	disorde – NLD + ADD
1	David	Boy	Middle	High school+	7th grade	NLD + ADD
2	Danny	Boy	High	High school+	7th grade	NLD + ADD
3	Haim	Boy	Middle	Academic	8th grade	NLD + ADD
4	Na’ama	Girl	High	Academic	7th grade	NLD + ADD
5	Tali	Girl	High	Academic	7th grade	NLD

Students with integrated verbal and non-verbal disability and attention deficit – NLD + VLD

	+ ADHD
1	Avia	Girl	High	Academic	10th grade	Integrated
2	Batya	Girl	Middle	Academic	7th grade	Integrated
3	Meira	Girl	Middle	Academic	8th grade	Integrated
4	Zohar	Girl	Middle	High school+	5th grade	Integrated
5	Michael	Boy	Middle	Academic	Nursery school	Integrated

Note: n = 20 (10 girls, 10 boys).

Methodology and data collection

Primary data came from in-depth, semi-structured interviews with each of the pupils in the sample. Additional information about social functioning, social support, and academic achievement was derived from interviews with parents and teachers, and from the pupils’ personal files and academic records. These multiple data sources also served for cross-checking of data in the analysis phase. A triangulation process serves to confirm, validate, and extend hypotheses emerging from the data contained in the semi-structured interviews. Data gathered during interactions with the students in real time over a period of three years allowed us to intimately follow the progress and devel-opment of student perceptions and experiences, coping processes, and development.

Examples of the three semi-structured interview protocols are shown in Appendices 1–3. Interviews were conducted in an open and flexible manner, with the interviewer using her discretion regarding the topics to be covered. However, the main topics

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286      S. Givon and D. Court

covered for each included the subject’s background before being diagnosed, his or her understanding of the disability, coping methods, use of adjustments, and accommoda-tions given, together with the student’s assessment of their efficacy, parental support, social support, use of academic, social, and psychological services, and the student’s thoughts about academic success in the future.

Interviews were conducted at three points in time:

(1)   Beginning of the 10th grade, before any of the matriculation examinations began. This interview was a retrospective life-history interview and was focused on the past regarding the pupil’s learning disability.

(2)  During the 11th grade, in relation to the present, and with a focus on the student’s perceptions regarding specifics of his or her current learning issues. The interviews were conducted prior to the matriculation examinations held in that year.

(3)   At the conclusion of the 12th grade, after taking final matriculation examina-tions. This interview contained questions and probes directed to the future.

Complementary data sources collected included:

(1)  For the first interview, the student’s academic and social functioning up to this point based on conversations with parents and teachers.

(2)  For the second interview, material collected from student files, teachers’ reports, and the minutes of staff meetings.

(3)   For the third interview, the student’s final matriculation grades, the ‘security grade’ which is a teacher-given annual school grade, and material gathered from the student’s personal files, staff meeting reports, and end-of-year report cards. The final matriculation grade is calculated as the average between the annual ‘security grade’ and the actual examination grade attained.

Data management and analysis

The ‘grounded theory’ methodology was used for data analysis. Using this methodol-ogy, the resultant model emerges from the data itself in which it was ‘grounded.’ All of the semi-structured interviews, audio-taped and transcribed, were analyzed accord-ing to the principles of ‘grounded theory’ (Glaser and Strauss 1967; Strauss and Corbin 1994). Using this methodology, the resultant model emerges from the data itself in which it was ‘grounded.’ The ATLAS-ti (2004) computer program for quali-tative data analysis was used to manage the datasets, and as an aid in coding and compiling flow charts to show connections between codes.

We followed the classic procedures suggested for grounded theory. We first iden-tified categories and sub-categories in the semi-structured interview transcripts using an ‘open-coding’ process. These were re-checked, re-assembled, linked to, compared, and cross-checked with each other and with data from the complementary sources. Constant comparison allowed us to identify core categories which were those which appeared frequently, or with greater clarity and focus than others, and which could be related to other categories, confirmed by other data, or categories, or differentiated from them. This axial coding process enabled us to distinguish two central axes around which the other core categories rotated. The process of selective coding also enabled us to follow a storyline which enabled a conceptual model to be constructed

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International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education  287

which differentiated between coping styles, causality, and adaptive and maladaptive behaviors. As Merriam (2001) writes, researchers who build theory in an applied field such as education need to evaluate their emerging theory in terms of how well it fits in the area to which it will be applied and how useful it will be to practitioners in this area. We tried to attend both to the richness and robustness of the grounded theory and how thoroughly it was grounded in the data, and to its clarity and applicability for educators working with students with learning disabilities.

Results: a model of coping strategies

Data analysis revealed four coping strategies which were used by the students, and which appeared in two discrete fields, namely the cognitive-academic and the emotional. These coping strategies we called ‘Avoidance,’ ‘Rebellion,’ ‘Reconcilia-tion,’ and ‘Determination.’ Styles of coping were influenced by environmental and internal factors, such as social, parental, and educational support, the age of diagnosis, and the self-perception of the student and perception of his or her disability.

Two of the strategies were negative and did not lead to full acceptance and inte-gration of the disability with the self-image, namely avoidance and rebellion; the other two, reconciliation and determination, were constructive, leading to adjustment and integration with self-identity. These coping strategies were found to either remain as stances within which students were stuck or to be stages in the progression through which students passed en route to full integration of their disability into their self-image. Being able to identify that a student has currently adopted one of the stances, or coping stages, can assist school counselors, and learning disability specialists in assessment and in helping students to attain their goals. The model which emerged from the grounded theory analysis is presented in Table 2.

The two thematic axes around which the core categories revolved were:

(1)  The cognitive, academic field – academic abilities or deficits and repetitive failures were seen to lead to feelings of success or to powerlessness and lack of control.

(2)   The emotional field – fears of being labeled or stigmatized as academically incompetent, and experiencing a sense of threat to the self.

This finding is consonant with the literature on stress and coping (e.g. Lazarus and Folkman 1984; Folkmand and Lazarus 1991; Aldwin 1999). Coping styles either promoted or hindered the student’s acceptance of his or her disability. Coping is the critical end stage in a student’s history of confronting disability. Confrontation begins with unmet societal pressures and progresses through identification of disabilities and attempted interventions, severely stressing the student’s emotions and image of self. Stances and coping strategies students adopt in response to demands and stress, both to determine academic success and to define adjustments or non-adjustments students will take into adult life. Table 3 presents a flow chart of the model of coping strategies employed by the students in elation to the disability itself and to the emotions engen-dered by the disability.

Styles of emotional and cognitive coping strategies

The way students first conceive of their disability and its diagnosis, as a threat or a challenge, is the principal determining factor for how they will choose to cope. Do

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Table 2.  Model of coping strategies.

	Cognitive learning difficulties			Emotions accompanying disability
				Guarding against being overwhelmed by feelings
Goal of coping	Overcoming powerlessness, helplessness, and lack of control			of threat to self, and being labeled as incompetent
Adaptive, consolidation:	•	Realistically gauging difficulty in relation to resources		•  Perception of the disability as part of the self
Determination	•	Investment of effort		•  Making space for the disability
	•  Reframing and definition of the learning disability in			•  Reframing and defining the disability
		relationship to the tasks		•  New meaning to life despite the disability
	•	Allocating suitable resources		•  Motivation to prove one’s ability to succeed
	•  Determination to succeed despite the learning disability				despite difficulties
	•  Appropriate investment of effort toward the goal of succeeding
Adaptive, transitive:	•	Choice of a variety of ways of coping with the difficulties		•  Calming feelings with self-soothing
Reconciliation	•	Gaining control through finding alternative ways of learning		•  Reducing strength of feelings
	•  Use of rational judgment in relation to allocation and			•	Balancing emotional strengths
		investment of resources		•	Coping with anxiety
				•  Recruiting skills and aid in relaxation and for
					calming self
Non-adaptive, rejectionist:	•	Anger		•	Expression of anger
Rebellion	•	Aggressiveness		•	Blaming environment
	•	Resistance to therapy		•	Rebellious behavior
	•	Rude behavior		•	Acting-out behavior
	•  Disturbing behavior during study periods			•	Anti-social behavior
	•  Attempting to prove can cope without losing emotional control
	•  Over-compensation and exaggerated effort
	•  Repression leading to feelings of equality with peers
Non-adaptive, defensive:	•	Exaggerated dependence on others		•	Avoiding negative feelings
Avoidance	•	Turning inwards		•  Repression of difficult situations
	•	Giving up		•	Depression, hopelessness
	•	Avoiding effort		•	Suicidal thoughts
	•  Turning away from battling			•  Substituting threatening feelings with
	•	Crying			anorexia, drugs, smoking

288   S. Givon and D. Court

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Table 3.  Flow chart of model of coping strategies employed by the students coping strategies.

Coping with the cognitive learning difficulties

Coping with the emotions which accompany the disability

Goal of coping: guarding against being overwhelmed by feelings of threat to

Goal of coping: overcoming powerlessness, helplessness, and lack of control

the self and being labeled as incompetent

Adaptive

Non-adaptive

Adaptive

Non-adaptive

Determination

Reconciliation

Rebellion

Avoidance

Determination

Reconciliation

Rebellion

Avoidance

Realistically gauging

Choice of a

Anger

Exaggerated

Perception of the

Calming feelings

Expression of

Avoiding negative

the difficulty in

variety of

Aggressiveness

dependence

disability as

with self-soothing

anger

feelings

relationship to

ways of

on others

part of the self

Reducing strength of

Blaming

Repression of

Resistance to

resources

coping with

Turning

Making space for

feelings

environment

difficult

the difficulties

therapy

Investment of effort

inwards

the disability

Balancing emotional

Rebellious

situations

Finding

Rude behavior

Depression,

Reframing and

Giving up

Reframing and

strengths

behavior

alternative

Disturbing behavior

definition of the

Avoiding

defining the

Coping with anxiety

Acting-out

hopelessness

learning disability

ways of

during study

disability

Suicidal thoughts

effort

behavior

in relationship to

learning

periods

New meaning to

Recruiting skills and

the tasks and

which gives

Attempting to prove

Turning away

aid in relaxation

Anti-social

Substituting

control

life despite the

assessing and

that is able to

from

and calming self

behavior

threatening

Use of rational

battling

disability

feelings with

allocating suitable

cope without

resources

judgment in

losing control

Crying

Motivation to

anorexia, drugs,

Determination to

relation to

emotionally,

prove one’s

smoking

ability to

succeed

allocation and

over-

succeed despite

investment of

compensation and

Despite the learning

resources

exaggerated

difficulties

disability,

effort

appropriate

Repression leading

investment of

effort toward goal

to feelings of

of succeeding

equality with

peers

International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education

289

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290      S. Givon and D. Court

they focus on the problem, or on the emotional distress resulting from the problem? The fear of being labeled and helplessness in cognitive learning were also significant features. Buffering factors which can help a student to move from non-adaptive coping styles to adaptive styles, include social and parental support, and attitudes and practical help from the school environment. What follows is a summary of the four major coping strategies and how they functioned in the emotional and cognitive fields.

Avoidance

This is a non-adaptive coping strategy which was found to function on the cognitive as well as on the emotional side. Essentially a defensive pattern of behaviors (Sideri-dis et al. 2006; Sideridis 2007), it includes lack of belief in help, lack of willingness to cooperate in treatment options, repression and denial of the situation, withdrawal behavior, tendency to weeping, depressive symptoms, giving up, and an exaggerated dependency on an adult figure(s). In some students, we found anorexia, suicidal thoughts, smoking, and dependence on drugs. These strategies characterized the beginning stages of the acceptance, understanding, and processing of the diagnosis, for those who moved on. Some students were stuck here; others retreated to these patterns when under threat or stress.

Lazarus and Folkman (1984) have pointed out how lack of control over stressful situations can lead to avoidance patterns. Students who employed emotional avoid-ance usually did so when they were diagnosed, and also adopted avoidance for other life challenges. They found it hard to recruit emotional or other resources in coping with their difficulties, and took refuge in fleeing from them. These students were typified by fear of failure, anxiety about academic demands, avoidance of the oppor-tunity for failure by truancy and non-attendance at school, non-fulfillment of academic tasks, and fear of examinations. Three of the girls reported that they had problems with anorexia. This could be interpreted as having exchanged the feelings of threat for a danger that was more tangible, but less disturbing to their self-image. Some of the boys described wanting to feel good by using addictive substances. Several students described resorting to crying jags, and perceived themselves as ‘sensitive’ children. Those who avoided their issues were also avoiding the realities of repeated academic failures, and repressing their feelings of frustration and anger at not being in control. These were the students who expressed a desire to study in other schools or programs. Fleeing from anxiety, they would deny, repress and avoid problems, frequently moving into the next stage in the coping progression, that of rebellion. Academically, students in the avoidance phase, or who used avoidance to cope, would be absent from class or arrive late to classes, not complete homework assignments, or be unwilling to cope on their own with academic tasks, often showing exaggerated dependence on adults or parents. The pattern of avoidance was found in retrospective storytelling which described the beginnings of the process in childhood, or adolescence, and depicted a state of being stuck in the initial stage of not accepting the disability. It was the NLD students who were more often stuck in this stage of non-acceptance in adolescence than students with other disabilities.

Rebellion

Students who employed rebellion as a coping strategy rejected proffered help, tended to blame others for their difficulties, failed to reconcile with their disability, and used

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International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education  291

bargaining tactics in their social environment and rebellious forms of acting-out behavior. The focus of control was directed outwards to external factors; these students would not take responsibility for themselves, their behavior, or their learning problems.

Reconciliation

Reconciliation is a step on the way to full acceptance of, and adaptation to, the disabil-ity (Waber et al. 2003). Students who adopt this strategy experience their limitations but are willing to invest effort in coping with them. In a sense, they sigh – but they cope. They display modes of emotional self-regulation, and treat the anxiety they might feel, without it overwhelming them. They are able to find a balance between different and conflicting emotions. They actively seek out help for their problems and do not deny them. They neither avoid their diagnosis nor repress it. They accept their learning disability as part of their self-image. They are able to live with the realization that they have a disability, but do not give in to feelings of despair. They might still wish to be treated as ordinary boys and girls, but are cooperative with and accepting of remedial help and assistance. Their emotional and cognitive coping go hand in hand, as they deal with their difficulties and accept them on an emotional level. They approach their difficulties in a rational manner and display a sense of control over their emotions.

Determination

Determination, the most adaptive coping strategy, is the consolidation stage following reconciliation. This coping strategy features determination to face and deal with the challenges of their limitations, and to display their full range of personal competencies despite the learning disability. The disability is perceived as part of their self-image, and they show an ability to reframe the situation as one which is amenable to change and with which they can cope. These students display resilience, as they change the disability from a threat to their self identity to a challenge to be met. As they display a positive attitude so others in their social environment react more positively and are more accepting of them, which in turn affirms and confirms their strategy and their self-worth. Students in their final year who are determined have high expectations of themselves and their performance, and work hard to achieve this. They are able to shift strengths to answer specific challenges, and are spurred on to proving that they can succeed despite their disability.

The strategy of determination can employ avoidant-like cognitive coping methods, which are in fact adaptive to positive ends, avoiding the problem by finding ‘work-arounds’ to dealing with challenges, bypassing their difficulties or compensating for them. Students with reading and attention difficulties reported that they preferred not to read textbooks at all, but had peers read aloud to them or would use summaries written by friends or teachers. Some students with attention deficits would speak aloud to themselves to memorize and benefit from studying with a friend to check ‘what I know and what I don’t’.

Students were able to guess words from their context. As one student put it, ‘Everyone who has dyslexia knows how to read, by aid of what he does understand, of what is written there, even if it is a difficult word’. This method of compensation has been previously studied by Stanovich (1984) and others such as Fink (1995) and

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292      S. Givon and D. Court

Kos (1991), who found that displaying interest in the topics being studied can affect the fluency of reading and coping with unfamiliar texts. In some respects, this finding is worrisome, for it has been shown that practice in reading, even when there is no change in the manner or quality of reading, can have a morphological, functional effect on the structure of the brain (Lishman 2003; Tallal 2003).

Some find ways of preparing for the matriculation examination ‘without opening a book’. This begs the question of the nature of such examinations, when a student can pass by reading only summaries and flow charts. It was noteworthy that, when study-ing for the matriculation examinations, determined students would more often turn to their friends and peers than their parents for help. They would also utilize techniques they learned from remedial teachers. They were willing to use all the special dispen-sations and accommodations the educational system provided. They regarded them-selves not as handicapped, but as having a certain degree of handicap which entitled them to special rights in order to cope. They were not apologetic about their disability, and saw the commitment to help as the school’s responsibility, and their opportunity to use accommodations as a right, not a privilege. Thus, Ofra saw the school’s supply of special dispensations as a way of giving the students with learning disabilities equal opportunities. She said:

First, the commitment to the student belongs to the school. The student does not always have to run … bring the tape-recorder and say sorry for needing to be read aloud to. No! It is a thing that he deserves. It is the school’s commitment. This is what he deserves and what he needs. There is a student who needs a chair and a table and there is another one that needs to be read aloud to. It is highly important to do this thing, because otherwise, I sometimes felt as if I asked too much … Sorry, but can someone read aloud to me? Sorry, but I need extra time, and … It has to be completely the other way, like also the thing of informing the teachers so that they also understand, and know what adjustments mean, what it says about the meaning of treating the student … that it says nothing … [smiling] that it says nothing.

Teachers are in the front line of providing help and support, and the determined students felt that if the teachers treated their disabilities as something natural and acceptable, this would help them. Teachers also need to know what the current dispen-sations are for learning disabled students and to keep up with any changes in policies.

Students with non-verbal learning disabilities found it harder to move beyond the non-adaptive coping styles than did their peers with other difficulties. This could be due to personality characteristics that are associated with their disability. Those who reached a partial reconciliation approaching determination were liable to fall back on patterns of avoidance and rebellion during tests and examination periods. Even when acting in a determined manner, this could be termed ‘pseudo-determination’ since they went about dealing with challenges in an unrealistic manner, ‘going against the wind.’ Their self-perceptions were also, in the main, unrealistic. Psychological support did not seem to prevent them from ‘tripping up’ when they faced situations which placed them with a renewed definition of their disabilities, something to be considered by educational counselors and remedial professionals (Little 1999; Palombo 2001).

Problems with early diagnosis

Most of the participants reported that from an early age, before their learning disabil-ity was diagnosed, they felt ‘something was wrong’. First failures at a young age can

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generally cause deep feelings of insecurity and negative self-image (Gans, Kenny, and Ghany 2003). The mother is usually the first to seek help, but even then she is some-times mistakenly dismissed, as Zohar described:

Mom was more furious than anyone, because she was the one, who, from first or second grade felt that something was wrong with me, but the teacher kept saying: ‘You’re pressuring the child too much. You’re not giving her freedom,’ and stuff. Later, my mom used to say: ‘Look, you see, I could have taken care of you before and the teacher prevented me, and ruined things.’ It was hard for me to see her suffering like that. As if she blamed herself for what happened, and in the end she saw that she took me to be diag-nosed and all privately (at her expense) and spent lots of money on it, just to fix what happened and to help me.

Even after the formal diagnosis, especially when done at a young age, the learning disability is thought to be something strange, confusing, and unclear. The deficiency is regarded as something to be ashamed of, for the child to hide and keep up a pretense at school that ‘everything is as usual’, in spite of many hours of corrective instruction that might have been given in the afternoons outside of formal school hours.

Knowledge about when learning disability was first identified is important for understanding the student’s coping processes and strengths. From the research partic-ipants we learned that even diagnoses done in elementary school do not alleviate academic failure and ‘being different’. They describe negative and embarrassing memories. In retrospect many felt that they were too young and immature to deal with and understand the meaning of their diagnosis. Only when they reached the beginning of high school did they describe diagnosis either as a motivating factor to deal with their problems or as a shock if it is only diagnosed later. The revelation that they have a learning disability and that ‘this is a constant thing that will not change’ was usually a threatening situation involving loss and anger. As Ofra again described:

And this makes me angry every time I remember it… that how come that a student in school, only after ten years they discover that she has such things. I have so much anger towards the educational system, again, that they don’t prepare the teachers for this thing, what kind of thing is it, that a teacher has to cope with such a thing and such a variety of students like he has to cope with the student’s problem and also he has to know how to approach a student with a certain problem…

Stages in acceptance of the diagnosis

Denzin (1989) speaks of a turning point in human life, a key event or epiphany. Life before the revelation is not like life afterwards. For students with a learning disability, in order to turn the diagnosis into a meaningful turning point in their lives, they would need the cognitive ability to understand the ramifications of the diagnosis, be ready to accept the diagnosis and the necessity for it, and to have the results and ramifications of the diagnosis made clear and explicit.

The process, through which the diagnosis can turn into a meaningful factor in the academic coping of the student, can be characterized by four stages from understand-ing, to acceptance and reconciliation.

(1)  Understanding of the meaning of the diagnosis, its goal and the necessity thereof

(2)  Understanding the actual disability and its meanings

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(3)   Readiness to recruit inner strength in order to invest in learning and to receive help in special dispensations, accommodations, and in learning

(4)  Readiness to fully use the recommendations that are made, and insisting on the right to be granted available special services, even if this involves battles, exposure, and labeling

Identification of the stage that the student is at in this process, especially by school counselors, is a significant starting point to the commencement of scholastic treatment.

All students underwent similar processes from the day they understood the mean-ing of the diagnosis and its necessity: being ready to accept it and reconcile with it as part of their self perception. Not every student goes through all the stages, but one can always identify the place the student is at in the sequence of the process, and the stage of the decision-making process accompanying the receiving of the adjustment, as expressed by Ofra:

From the time of the diagnosis, it was all the time a matter of process. For me, at least, it was a never-ending process. It was accepting … that you accept yourself each time anew, every time you pass a stage and the last year (12th grade) was a year that on the one hand, I demanded less from myself, and on the other hand, I insisted on my rights (accommodations) like being read to aloud, and things like that. I really insisted. I knew that this was what I deserved and needed, and slowly I began to use things like extra time. So in the beginning, I said: ‘Come on, who needs it?’ I don’t always need the reading aloud, and slowly I saw that even if I don’t think it’ll help me, I’ll take it. I probably need it, and slowly, I discovered that I do need it. There are things that I still think I’ll never accept, like comments from the people around me, that I haven’t fully accepted it. Maybe socially there is some kind of progress, but still, it’s still not the end. I still feel different.

When the diagnostic-acceptance process continued over substantial periods of time – starting at the beginning of junior high school up to the beginning of high school studies – students passed the stages in a gradual manner, and were more ready to accept the deficiency and to reach the stage of reconciliation before the matriculation examinations started. These students had more available resources to invest in coping with the learning and the cognitive difficulties accompanying the matriculation examinations.

If their process was too extensive, or they remained ‘stuck’ in an initial phase of denial of the problem, students had difficulties concentrating on the cognitive task and became overwhelmed in coping with the emotions accompanying the problem. Busy with their fear of being labeled and with emotional coping, they were not free for learning; as Ofra explained:

It is very difficult, because beyond getting used to being read aloud to you and all the technical things; for me, the mental process was very meaningful, a thing that inhibits very much when I come to the exam with discomfort and with a special block […]. I did not understand why I was given these things, and like everything happens so quickly, as if before the diagnosis and until you take the time to digest the fact that you have such accommodations and these are the first matriculation exams and everything is new, everything goes quickly […] nothing was really stable to let me really calm myself.

The students who face more difficulties with their coping are especially those with NLD. Kübler-Ross (1978) described seven stages in coping with a loss: shock, apathy or denial, depression, concession, re-examination of the place of the individual in the

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world, quest for meaning and at the end – reconciliation. It is interesting to note that the sense of loss that the students described following their diagnosis, and the revela-tion that they are not like everybody else, is similar to the stages following bereave-ment and loss.

Internal and external factors in the development of coping strategies

The study clarified that coping strategies were created in and affected by certain contexts, that is, external conditions including family support, social support, and school support, and internal conditions of the individual – personality characteristics, self-perception, the stage the student is at in the process of acceptance of the deficiency, and the perception of the deficiency as part of the consolidated identity at adolescence.

Family support

Parents aspire for continuity, and wish to view their genetic pool in a positive light. When this aspiration cannot materialize, due to a deficiency, perhaps of a genetic source, parents may feel guilt (Dokins 1989). The result of contradicting emotions along time – worry and over-protection on one hand, and rejection, anger, denial, and despair on the other hand – may cause faulty relationships and an unstable foundation for the construction of the self-image of the child.

In many cases, the mother is the first to ask for diagnosis, but the educational system or the father denies her, claiming ‘everything is going to be fine’. In the histories of the participants of this study, the active and non-compromising concern of the mothers stood out. This expressed itself in their taking the initiative in seeking diagnosis, mainly during elementary school, in help with learning given by most of them to their children, sometimes by picking a private tutor or sending them for para-medical treatments and making sure that the child attended treatments. The mother herself might function as a private tutor and read school material aloud to the child, teach him/her, and organize the learning process. Where the family is unified, the child feels protected and is more ready to recruit him or herself to the challenges of learning, as described by Nir:

The thing that helped me most was the family support. The most, most help came from the family support. Support by the fact that they understood. I have had this since a young age, and they also understood when it was my fun time. My father … let’s say my mother and father were really understanding towards me. It was exactly, exactly what I needed like when I felt that I had to go out, my father said: ‘Enough, let him out already, he can’t do it anymore’. And with my mother … she knew when it was too much and was like: ‘Enough. Sit a little while and study a little’ and all that, she was helping me plenty. She is educated, like, and she helped me in English and in math and in civics. Yes, until this year she used to help me with everything, they helped me and paid for all the private tutoring and it’s plenty of money, like, it makes you feel uneasy.

Social support

We found that societal relationships and perception play a considerable role in the choice of the coping strategies. Difficulties in social proficiency have two main dimensions: the cognitive dimension and the emotional dimension. In the cognitive

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dimension, the ability to solve social problems is a part of basic thinking processes and requires a cognitive proficiency in understanding social situations, grasping non-verbal nuances, and having skills for successful communication. When social behavior and cues are wrongly interpreted, this can set off a chain of reactions and difficulties.

Social deficits (Tur-Kaspa 2002) are often related to the disability itself (Margalit and Levin-Alyagon 1996). The emotional dimension is another source of social diffi-culties that reflect the degree of ability of emotional regulation of feelings such as arousal, lack of self-confidence, frustration, aggression, and violent behaviors. These are factors secondary to the disability and its meaning to the individual. Disruptions in the fabric of social communication can lead to avoidance of social situations, and compound inter-personal difficulties due to lack of social experience.

Research participants expressed the view that their social difficulties were height-ened at the time of diagnosis, due to fear of being labeled and ostracized. Once the shift toward acceptance occurred, usually in the beginning of high school, when diagnosis becomes a tool for success rather than a stigmatic label, the perceived stigma of diagnosis was less prominent than the desire for social acceptance. The fear of being labeled actually acted as a stimulus for taking help and special dispensations, encouraging students to work actively on their disabilities so as not to be labeled. However, the students with NLD who were still, at the end of their high school careers, fearful of the social labeling aspect, differed from their learning disability peers in that they reported that they would not rush to tell others about their disability or make further use of special study dispensations after high school. It was mainly the NLD students who regarded the diagnosis as the source of their social difficulties, and could not separate out their problems in social communication as part of their larger problem. Some even claimed to have no difficulties at all, although these statements were contradicted by comments from their parents and teachers.

Lack of support in elementary school

Students reported most signs of distress at a younger age, signs of moderation and acceptance as they passed on to junior high, and the least amount of distress when they reached high school. Many of the students reported that while in elementary school, their teachers disregarded recommendations relating to their diagnosis, often not even reading them; there was a sharp disconnect between the diagnosing agents and the teacher’s implementation of their didactic remedial instructions. This might be due to a more accepting and informed attitude in more recent years, and greater awareness of the teacher’s role with the student with learning disabilities and the teacher’s cooper-ation with remedial and special dispensations. It could also be that there is more awareness and education among high school educators with regard to these problems than in elementary level teachers.

From the student research participants themselves, we heard that elementary school teachers expected them to perform like everyone else, and that in some cases, their disabilities were exposed in front of their peers; students felt humiliated and embarrassed. Additionally, they failed to receive the anticipated support following the diagnosis, and the many hours they spent in corrective education were not reflected in their school performance. They describe a poor self-perception of themselves in elementary school. Once they moved on to junior high, students had, on the one hand, more need for special adjustments and assistance, but there was also a concomitantly

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positive response to their needs from the school system. Perhaps, the teachers had more in-service training about student needs and difficulties, and accommodations were more frequently built in to the educational system. Whatever the reason, for a majority, the self-perceptions of students during their junior high years changed for the better. The system seemed to encourage acceptance and reconciliation at this point, and fear of labeling decreased.

Intrinsic personality characteristics

Individual personality characteristics, including self-perception, play a significant role in the coping process and in the individual’s acceptance of the disability and move-ment along the phases of reconciliation and acceptance of the disability as part of his or her self-identity.

Comparing the progress from their retrospective accounts of childhood with narratives of their junior and high school experience, most of the students saw child-hood as the period in which they wanted to be considered one of their peer group, and they compared themselves unfavorably with their peers in terms of their disability and poor scholastic achievements. During adolescence, the arena of coping extended to newfound areas of focus and interest beyond the scholastic. They describe receiving encouragement and acceptance from their peers, and this in turn facilitated self-acceptance and the working through of the stages of reconciliation with their deficien-cies. Most of the participants reported that, when they publicized their disability, the social environment reacted in a more positive manner than when they were in elemen-tary school: ‘The guys in class took it naturally’. The disability did not hinder the establishment of satisfactory social relationships, and shame was reduced as openness and support increased. There were almost no negative responses in high school. Students were also able to turn to their peers for help with their studies or for a sympa-thetic ear with their struggles. As one of the research participants stated: ‘The moment I accepted it, so society accepted it better.’ This did not come easily. She named the process she underwent, ‘an endless process, like stairs that have ups and downs.’

Conclusions and recommendations

The methodology of using in-depth semi-structured interviews (Paterson 2007), bolstered by complementary data culled from teacher and parent discussions and academic reports and notes, provided a rich source of data. Researchers heard the voice of the students expressing their perceptions of their problems and needs. Coping strengths and weaknesses in two fields, the cognitive and the emotional, were revealed to have buffering causes, and also consequences that were either adaptive or maladap-tive. The progression of student-coping strategies from their own perspective from elementary school through junior to high school and their efforts to achieve a matric-ulation certificate could be traced in real time, with only the first data collection point a retrospective account.

A model was constructed which shows four major coping styles and how these are expressed in the cognitive and emotional domains. These styles were found to be discrete strategies, which could also be viewed as stages in a linear progression from non-adaptation to adaptation and accommodation with the disability. The model allows for the dynamic nature of coping and adaptation to a learning disability. Students could be placed in one of the stages and be stuck in a non-adaptive mode or

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could move forward through all or some of the stages to the last phase of adaptation in coping with their disability. When students find themselves in stressful academic situations or challenging emotional contexts, they tend to regress to earlier modes of non-adaptation.

The coping strategies could be viewed as moving along two parallel lines: one the emotional, the other the cognitive. The major goals of emotional coping strategies were to overcome being flooded with feelings of threat to the self and fears of being labeled as different and incompetent. Strategies employed for cognitive coping aimed to help the students to overcome feelings of helplessness, powerlessness, and loss of control. The four major coping strategies – avoidance, rebellion, reconciliation, and determination – were expressed in slightly differing nuances on the emotional and cognitive side. The former two were non-adaptive styles whereas the last two were adaptive and led to successful outcomes of coping. Some students described moving through all four of these styles whereas others appeared to be stuck in one of them. Differences were seen between students with non-verbal deficits and those with verbal disabilities.

Early identification of disability is recommended, together with school acceptance of disabilities and provision of accommodations for assisting students with disabilities from elementary school through junior high and on to high school. However, interven-tions are effective only to the extent that students internalize coping strategies and styles. Teachers, school counselors, and remedial educators can use the four coping strategy model to discover students’ present coping styles, strengths, and weaknesses, and to then help students improve their strategies for coping.

Notes on contributors

Sara Givon is the head of the planning team for courses in diagnostic testing at the Moffet Institute in Israel. She lectures in areas related to teacher training for learning disabilities at Jerusalem College and Hertzog College in Israel, and works with the Israeli Ministry of Education in the Department of Learning Disabilities.

Deborah Court is a senior lecturer in the School of Education at Bar-Ilan University in Israel. She teaches courses in curriculum studies and qualitative research methodology. Her research centers on school and classroom culture, the ways values are transmitted through school culture, and on school leadership.

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Appendix 1. Flexible interview protocol for Interview 1; conducted when students were in 10th grade

Open-ended question

(1)     I am interested in the life stories of students who are being examined for matriculation in the framework of special dispensations. Please tell me your life story from when you remember yourself until today.

Focused questions (to be adapted to the student narrative)

Educational-learning history

(1)     What were the first signs of your difficulty?

(2)     How did those in your environment react at this time?

(3)     How did you cope during this period?

(4)     Who first recognized the difficulty; how, and during which grade?

(5)     What methods were employed to help with your studies, and what were their effec-tiveness?

(6)     What were family, friends, and teacher responses to your difficulties at significant stations in your school career?

(7)     In which class did you start to use the special educational dispensations in a formal manner? How did those in your environment react to this?

(8)     In what way did moving from one special framework to help with your disability to another influence you?

Perception of learning disability, and influence of this

(1)     When was the most significant educational assessment? What were you told? How did your parents react?

(2)     How can you define the difficulty and to what can you compare it? (Probe for similes and metaphors)

(3)     How did your friends react to your assessment? When did you, if at all, tell them?

(4)     Describe positive and negative experiences to do with your disability.

(5)     How do you cope today in terms of learning, and with the reactions of those in your social environment?

(6)     What do you do in your leisure time? Do you have hobbies, or special interests?

Future perspective

(1)     How do you see your chances of succeeding in the matriculation examinations?

(2)     How do you see yourself in terms of occupation in the future?

(3)     What would you recommend to a student who has similar problems to yours who is starting high school?

(4)     How would your difficulties influence your future choice of profession?

(5)     What do you want to do when you ‘grow up?’

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Appendix 2. Flexible interview protocol for Interview 2; conducted when students were in 11th grade

Open-ended question

(1)     A year has passed since our last interview on the eve of Passover. I am still interested in the experiences of a student who is coping with the matriculation under the new (Israeli) special education dispensations, called ‘accommodations.’ Tell me what has been happening since we parted until today.

Focused questions (to be adapted to the student narrative)

Description of cognitive coping with the learning disability

(1)     How do you prepare for examinations? What are the systems and services you use for preparation, both within the school and outside?

(2)     Describe an incident that occurred around an examination, and what you thought about before and after?

(3)     Describe your daily routine during the examination period.

(4)     Describe your manner of coping with your studies and feelings during this busy period.

(5)     Describe a situation in which there was a change in your feelings about yourself and towards studying.

(6)     Describe the nature of the support you receive from parents, family members, and teachers. What in particular has been helpful?

(7)     Describe your relationship to your peers and friends.

(8)     What are your extra-curricular and recreational activities?

(9)     Describe your relationship to the special dispensations (accommodations) given; their effectiveness, the method the school uses to organize these, and the responses of those around you to these accommodations, and to you?

(10)  Describe your difficulties. Define what for you is a learning difficulty?

(11)  How would you describe, or give a metaphor for the difficulty? For example, ‘For me to learn for the Matriculation is like………….’ Please complete the sentence.

(12)  Describe an experience of learning difficulty. How did this position you vis á vis your peers?

Future projection

(1)     Can you describe your results versus your expectations? Have your results so far been in line with your expectations?

(2)     What are your feelings about this?

(3)     Describe an imagined projected situation in the future – the day upon which you receive your results. What do you anticipate would be your response, and that of your peers, and parents?

(4)     What are your feelings about your chances of success in the matriculation examination?

(5)     What are the investments you will need to make towards this?

(6)     What would your recommendations be to a student like yourself with similar learning difficulties, who is at the beginning of this process?

(7)     What are your plans for the future? How would your learning disability influence your choice of a profession/occupation?

(8)     What would your message be to the school and the teachers?

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Appendix 3. Flexible interview protocol for Interview 3; conducted when students were in 12th grade and had completed their examinations

Meaning of the experience in light of the future

Open-ended question

(1)     A year has passed since we last met on the eve of Passover. I am still interested in the experiences of a student who is coping with the matriculation under the new (Israeli) special education dispensations. Tell me what has been happening since we parted until today.

Focused questions (to be adapted to the student narrative)

Description of the experience: positives and difficulties

(1)     Describe how you prepare for examinations?

(2)     What systems of support do you use?

(3)     What does your order for the day look like?

(4)     How would you describe the comparison between 10th, 11th, and 12th grade in the way you coped emotionally and cognitively?

(5)     How do you make use of the accommodations, special dispensations?

(6)     What were the attitude of teachers and friends to you and your use of the acco-mmodations?

(7)     What in your opinion is the level of effectiveness of the organization of the acco-mmodations?

(8)     What has helped you?

(9)     Describe any changes which have occurred, in attitudes of your friends, parents, teachers.

(10)  How do you see the roles of educational counselor, psychologist, and examiner?

Self-perception

(1)     How do you perceive yourself in comparison to others?

(2)     What are your relationships like with your peers?

(3)     What is your perception of your learning difficulty?

(4)     What has been its influence on your coping with your studies?

(5)     Are your expectations in line with your achievements so far?

Plans, feelings, and perceptions of the future

(1)     What are your feelings about the future?

(2)     What are your plans for the future?

(3)     To what extent will the learning difficulties and/or what you have learned in this expe-rience of entering the Matriculation track, influence your future choice of profession?

(4)     Will you use accommodations outside of the school framework for future studies?

(5)     In retrospect, what helped you the most?

(6)     What message would you like to give to the school?

(7)     What message would you like to give to a child with learning disability at the begin-ning of her/his school career?

(8)     Please complete the sentence: ‘For me, to pass the matriculation examinations is like:………………..’ (Metaphor for coping).