Applied explanatory style, self-esteem, and early-adolescents with learning disabilities: An informational website for helping professionals

Approximately 2.6 million students are diagnosed with a learning disability (LD) in the United States. There are many negative psychological and psychosocial consequences that can be attributed to having a LD, including a decrease in self-esteem. Low self-esteem has been shown to be liked to depression, suicidal ideation, and anxiety. Early adolescents are at risk for developing low self-esteem and the addition of a LD increases this risk greatly. Although there is a plethora of research looking at self-esteem change, none have used Explanatory Style as mode of change. Explanatory style is a cognitive personality variable used to describe how people habitually explain the causes of the events in their lives. The literature review seeks to explain how explanatory style impacts the self-esteem of early adolescents with LDs. The dissertation was presented as a website offering information about (a) Learning Disabilities, (b) Self-Esteem, (c) Explanatory Style, (d) How and why explanatory style can be used to impact the self-esteem of early adolescents with LDs, and (e) Methods of self-esteem change for psychotherapists, parents, and teachers. The feedback from ten volunteers, who viewed the website, was overall very positive. Individual's level of knowledge increased in all areas measured and all thought the website was useful. The areas of needed improvement centered on the layout and organization of the website.