Author(s): Summer Pereira, Harley Jenkins, Josh Olsen
Mentor(s):
Institution SUU
Social bonds and supportive relationships with others are essential to mental health (Turner & Brown, 2010). Students with learning disabilities (LDs) encounter social challenges in the form of fewer friends, disconnectedness from their classmates, and heightened perceptions of isolation (Bruefach & Reynolds, 2022). Individuals with various kinds of disabilities—including those that create difficulties in learning—experience all of the elements of social stigma: labeling, stereotyping, separation, status loss, and discrimination (Green et al., 2005). This suggests that people with LDs struggle more on a social level than their peers without LDs. Based on past research, it is expected that students with LDs will experience more feelings of loneliness and discrimination and less feelings of belonging and perceived social support than students without LDs. The data was collected from an online study where the responses were self-reported by anonymous participants. Participants were college students enrolled at Southern Utah University. For this study, we examined the factors of loneliness (UCLA Loneliness Scale; Neto, 2014), belonging (American College Health Association; ACHA 2022) perceived social support from peers (Multidimensional Scale of Perceived Social Support, Friends subscale; Zimet et al. 1988), and the single item, “people act as if they think you are not as smart” from the Everyday Discrimination Scale (Williams, 1997; p. 340). Our planned analysis uses t-tests to compare levels of self-reported loneliness, belonging, social support, and everyday discrimination across people with LDs and people without LDs. Since the sample sizes of both groups are substantially different, Welch’s t-tests will be conducted to compare these factors to minimize assumptions. Much is unknown about social differences between people with and without LDs. More research is needed to further our understanding and help us to be able to provide individuals with LDs what they need to thrive. Through this presentation, we hope to bring awareness to this topic that affects many children, adolescents, and adults.