The Role of Family Communication Patterns in Predicting Emotional Intelligence of Students with Specific Learning Disorder

Background and Purpose: Despite having desired cognitive ability, students with learning disorder suffer from social and emotional problems and act weakly in emotional intelligence skills. The family environment can play an essential role in the development of emotional intelligence skills. Family environment can play an essential role in the development of emotional intelligence skill. Therefore, the present study was conducted to investigate the role of family communication patterns in predicting emotional intelligence of students with specific learning disorder. The study was of descriptive correlational design. The participants were 83 students studying at grades 3 to 6 in the learning disorder centers of Shiraz in the academic year of 2016-2017. They were selected through convenience sampling. To collect the data, family communication patterns questionnaire (Koerner & Fitzpatrick, 2002) and Emotional Intelligence Test (Bradberry & Greaves, 2005) were used. The results of Pearson correlation coefficient showed that conversation orientation had a positive correlation with emotional intelligence (p<0.01), while the conformity orientation was negatively correlated with the emotional intelligence (p <0.01). Also, results of multiple regression indicated that conversation orientation was a positive significant predictor of emotional intelligence and its subscales (p<0.001); while, conformity orientation was a negative significant predictor of relationship management and emotional intelligence (p<0.05). According to the findings of the research, it can be stated that children with specific learning disorder who are encouraged to have free discussion and conversation in the family, can enjoy the desired emotional intelligence. In the contrary, children of families that continuously insist on conformity of beliefs and attitudes will have a weaker relationship management and emotional intelligence.