The effectiveness of self-compassion training on emotion regulation of female students with specific learning disorder

Researchs show that learning disabilities cause many problems for students in various fields, especially emotions. The aim of the current study was to determine the effectiveness of self-compassion training on emotion regulation of female students with specific learning disorder. This research is a quasi- experimental study with a pre and post-test with a control group design. Statistical population of this study included all of elementary sixth grade female students with special learning disabilities who studied in Yazd city in the year 2017-2018. The study sample included 30 students with special learning disabilities (15 experimental group and 15 control group) who were selected by cluster sampling and randomly divided into the experimental and control groups. The data was collected using emotion regulation questionnaire. The self-compassion training was held for the experimental group in ten 60-minute sessions. The results of covariance (ANCOVA) indicated that self-compassion training significantly increased emotion regulation and reappraisal (positive dimension of emotion regulation) (P< 0/001), but no effect was found on suppression (negative dimension of emotion regulation). These findings suggest that the self-compassion training is an effective method for the use of specialists in educational and therapeutic centers to improve the mental health of students with special learning disabilities.