The Effect of Attention Skills on Neuropsychological Skills and Academic Burnout of the Students with Learning Disabilities

Learning disability with the disturbance in attention and learning process of the students cause academic boredom and burnout gradually. Therefore the objective of the present study was to investigate the effect of teaching attention skills on neuropsychological skills and academic burnout of the students with learning disability. A sample of 30 people of the study population (the students with learning disability in the primary schools of the city of Tehran in academic year 2017-18) were selected through multi-stage clustered sampling method and were randomly replaced into experimental and control groups in order to do the study. The research design was experimental from pretest, posttest and control group type. The applied instruments in this study included forth version of intelligence test (Wexler, 2011) and neuropsychological test (Conners, 2004), learning problems questionnaire (Wilcot, et.al, 2011) and academic burnout questionnaire (Shaofelli, et.al, 2002). Before administering independent variable, pretest was taken from both groups. Then the experimental group received teaching interventions during 9 sessions in Two and a half months. The data from the study were analyzed via ANCOVA. The results showed that teaching attention skills has significantly influenced neuropsychological skills and academic burnout of the students with learning disability (f= 197.39, f= 86.09, p<0.001). The degree of the effect of attention skills on neuropsychological skills and academic burnout of the students with learning disability was 88 and 76% respectively. According to the findings of this study teaching attention skills can be applied as an efficient method to improve neuropsychological skills and academic burnout of the students with learning disability.