Cognitive and Linguistic profiles of Students with specific learning disability versus students with learning problem

The aim of this study was to investigate the cognitive and linguistic profiles of students with specific learning disability versus students with learning problems. The participants constituted 100 students with learning disabilities and 100 students with learning problems who were matched based on age, gender, grade and IQ. The major evaluation tools that were used in this study included WISC-IV, BRIEF and TOLD-3. The data were analyzed through the multivariate analysis of variances (MANOVA).The results showed that students with specific learning disabilities had lower performance in cognitive profiles compared to learning problem students (P<0/001). Significant differences were found between the two groups. In addition, regarding the linguistic skills, the results indicated that students with specific learning disabilities had lower performance in phonological analysis compared to learning problem students (P<0/001). On the other hand, there were no significant differences between the two groups in terms of picture vocabulary, sentence imitation, morphological completion, word discrimination, word articulation, vocabulary, similarities and comprehension. Based on the results of this study, consideration of executive functions and linguistic skills in education and rehabilitation of students with specific learning disabilities and learning problems can lead to effective results.