Dubi Lufi

Test Anxiety and Its Effect on the Personality of Students with Learning Disabilities.

The purpose of this study was to look for personality variables that characterized young adults with learning disabilities and test anxiety. Fifty-four Israeli adults diagnosed with learning disabilities participated in the study, 24 of them were diagnosed as having test anxiety; 30 did not have test anxiety. The participants completed the Test Anxiety Inventory (TAI) to validate the diagnosis of test anxiety and the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory-2 (MMPI-2) to assess the different personality profiles. The results showed significant differences between the two groups on 35 out of 68 measures of the MMPI-2. A discriminant-function analysis of the content scales, the supplementary scales, and the Harris-Lingoes scales of the MMPI-2 showed that one measure, College Maladjustment, explained most of the variance. Further analysis assessed the various test anxiety profiles of the two types of test anxiety, “emotionality” and “worry.” The meaning of the results is discussed as a basis for explaining the profile of a student with learning disabilities and test anxiety.

Using the WISC-R to identify attentional deficit disorder

The purpose of the present research was to test the utility of the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children-Revised (WISC-R) subscales in differentiating between children with Attentional Dificit Disorder (ADD) and children with other problems. Twenty-four children with ADD and a control group of 19 children with behavioral/emotional disorders were identified on the basis of historical background and intake interview. The results indicated that scores on three WISC-R subscales—Arithmetic, Digit Span, and Coding—were significantly lower among the ADD group. The practical implications of the findings are discussed.

Sport-Based Group Therapy Program for Boys with ADHD or with Other Behavioral Disorders

A group of children with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) was compared to children with other behavior and emotional problems. All the participants participated together in 20 weekly sessions for 1 academic year. The participants were assessed with three questionnaires on three different occasions: before the beginning of the group, at the completion of the group, and 1 year after the completion of the group. The results showed that the children indicated improvement in two behavior domains while their parents indicated improvement in the childrens behavior in five domains. The most striking improvement was reduction of anxiety.

Attentional Deficit Disorder and short‐term visual memory

Twenty-four children with Attentional Deficit Disorder (ADD) were compared to a control group of 17 children with emotional problems. All the subjects were tested on the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children-Revised (WISC-R), along with an adaptation of the Coding subtest to measure short-term visual memory. The results showed superiority of the control group on the short-term visual memory task. The correlations of short-term visual memory with each of the subtests of the WISC-R were different for each group. For the emotional group short-term visual memory correlated significantly with the WISC-R verbal scores, while in the ADD group visual memory more often significantly correlated with performance subtests. In the discussion an attempt was made to explore the reasons for these differences and their implications for academic tasks.

Using the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory-2 to Develop a Scale to Identify Test Anxiety among Students with Learning Disabilities.

The purpose of this article was to describe an initial step developing a new scale to identify individuals with learning disabilities (LD) and test anxiety. Eighty-eight students answered the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory-2 (MMPI-2). The participants were drawn from the following three groups: (a) adults with LD and test anxiety, (b) adults with LD but no test anxiety, and (c) adults with no LD and no test anxiety. Each answer of the MMPI-2 was assessed using one-way ANOVA, and 37 items were selected. Additional ANOVA with both Bonferroni and Tukey post hoc tests at the .01 significance level reduced the new scale to 18 items. The final step assessed the reliability and convergent validity of the new scale with 18 items, by comparing it with the Test Anxiety Inventory. The authors discuss the relationship between the conventional classification of test anxiety (“Worry” and “Emotionality”) with the new scale.

Differential Diagnosis of Learning Disability versus Emotional Disturbance Using the WISC-R

The purpose of the present study was to assess the utility of different factor structures of the WISC-R in differentiating students with learning disability (LD) from children with emotional disturbance (ED). Based on several comparisons the results indicated that only the modified Kaufmans (1975) factor structure differentiated the two groups.

Randomised or not

Dear editor We read with interest the two perspective articles about methylphenidate (MPH) in children with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) published in the previous issue of Evidence-Based Mental Health .1 ,2 Both papers quote a study we published in 19973 and note that there is an issue about whether it was randomised or not. Our paper was published in 1997, and at that time the requirement for randomisation was different than …