Akademik Veri Yönetim Sistemi
CLINICAL PSYCHOLOGY & PSYCHOTHERAPY, cilt.31, sa.3, ss.1-10, 2024 (SSCI)
Background: Although it is often stated that children with special needs are at risk of being abused and neglected, research conducted on the abuse of children with specific learning disorders (SLDs) is limited.Methods: This case–control study aims to compare exposure to neglect and abuse among children diagnosed with SLDs (case group) and children with typical development (control group). The study included children aged 6 to 12years who were referred to the Child and Adolescent Psychiatry Outpatient Clinic and Pediatric Clinic of a hospital in Türkiye. The data collection pro-cess included 196 participants and lasted for 7 months in 2020.Results: Based on the analysis of the data collected with the Schedule for Affective Disorders and Schizophrenia for School Age Children- Present and Lifetime Turkish Version (K-SADS- PL-T) and the Abuse Assessment Questionnaire, we determined that children with SLDs were physically and emotionally abused more than the children of the control group. In addition, they witnessed violence between their parents more than the control group. Physical abuse, emotional abuse and witnessing family violence were identified as significant predictors for SLD.Conclusions: The presence of SLDs is a significant risk factor for children to be exposed to abuse even in the absence of ADHD as a comorbidity.1 | IntroductionSpecific learning disorders (SLDs) are defined as conditions in which children's reading, writing, mathematics and self-expression skills are low for their age group and education level, and they affect approximately 5%–15% of schoolchil-dren (American Psychiatric Association [APA] 2013). By a similar definition, SLDs are common developmental and neurobiological disorders of childhood that cause impair-ment in one or more areas, including reading, writing, math-ematics, listening, speaking and reasoning (Kaufman and Kaufman 2001). In addition to their academic skills, children with SLDs may have difficulties in social life, impulsivity in activities requiring attention, an unwillingness to play games that involve curiosity and tendencies of being quickly disap-pointed and reacting inappropriately (Bonifacci et al. 2020; McDowell 2018).SLDs, which are developmental disorders of neurological origin, may occur due to brain damage caused by problems occurring in the prenatal, perinatal or postnatal period; genetic factors; neu-rological dysfunction; close consanguineous marriages; paren-tal drug, alcohol or tobacco use; lead poisoning; and long-term malnutrition in early childhood (Cortiella and Horowitz 2014; Doğan 2012). According to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fifth Edition (DSM-5) (American This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.© 2024 The Authors. Clinical Psychology & Psychotherapy published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd.