Anxiety as the Mediator between Sensory Processing Styles and Learning Difficulties among Elementary School Students

To help elementary school students who experience difficulties in learning and the resulting anxiety to overcome or reduce these problems, it was hypothesized that sensory processing style could be the remedial key. To this end, a cluster sample of 250 3rd graders from among 2200 of them across public schools in Babol city in 2019-2020 school year was given three questionnaires of assumed validity and reliability. Data analyses revealed that that SPS and anxiety can together predict %86 of learning difficulties as they directly and significantly affect difficulties in learning. The indirect path too, shows significant impact of sensory processing style on difficulties in learning with anxiety mediating the impact. In other words, cognitive factors such as sensory processing style and anxiety do play an important role in explaining learning difficulties.