Role of Learning Disabilities in Academic Performance among High School Students: Significance of Demographic Variables

Abstract

The progression of any country lies on the educational progress and potential of the students. It is evident that for improving learning and quality of education, uncountable efforts and resources are spent every year but the educational standards do not meet the expected level. The present study was conducted to find out the role of learning disabilities among high school students and it also aimed to find out the relationship between learning disabilities (LD) and academic performance (AP) of high school students. For which 525 students were taken from different public and private sector schools of Rawalpindi and Islamabad. For the assessment of learning disabilities, the Learning Disabilities Checklist (LDC) (Ashraf & Najam, 2014) was used and the percentage of the marks obtained by the students in their class was taken as a representative of his or her academic performance. It was hypothesized that there would be a significant negative relationship between learning disabilities and academic performance of high school students. Results of Pearson correlation indicated that academic achievement was significantly negatively correlated with learning disabilities among high school students. Results also indicated that male students significantly scored high on reading disability as compared to female students. There was a significant positive relationship of the age with mathematical disabilities among male students with learning disabilities whereas the age was significantly positively associated with reading disabilities among female high school students. Results have important implications in the educational sector and for parental counseling and education as well.