The Salutogenic approach to students with learning disabilities: Predictors of hope and loneliness

In order to promote educational equity and inclusion opportunities for students with learning disabilities (LD), research focused attention at the need for identifying empowering predictors for students, focusing attention at their hopes, self beliefs, effort and struggle with loneliness. The salutogenic paradigm examines the dynamic movement along health ease/disease continuum. In extending the traditional children's loneliness conceptualization, which related loneliness with social status and social difficulties, research emphasized the interacting role of academic and social challenges, and the paradoxical resilience factors. The pathogenic approach focused effort at the assessment and remediation of specific disabilities in reading, writing and mathematics. Yet, the proposed approach is rooted in the resilience conceptualization, striving to empower students with LD, without denying their specific difficulties. Our research group demonstrated the value of hope and the challenges of loneliness in explaining resilience, pinpointing attention at the need for teachers' sensitizing, inter-cultural considerations and training implications. The goals of the current study were to compare hope, loneliness, sense of coherence and effort between 123 seventh-grade students with LD (75 boys and 48 girls) and a matching group of 123 typically achieving students who attended the same general education classes. The groups were matched for average achievement levels and gender. The results showed that students with LD reported lower levels of hope, decreased investment of effort in their academic work and lower self perceptions (sense of coherence). They also experienced higher levels of loneliness. The analysis of factors related to effort and achievement revealed the interactions between hope, sense of coherence and loneliness and strongly suggests the need for comprehensive examination. The study educational implications within resilience trends in education have a clear implication for teachers' education, to enhance equal opportunities for students with LD. The Salutogenic approach to students with learning disabilities: Predictors of hope and loneliness The goals of this study are to offer empowering paradigm for promoting success and wellbeing for students with learning disabilities. In order to promote educational equity and to expand inclusion opportunities for students with learning disabilities (LD) (Margalit, 2003), research challenge conventional approaches, focusing attention at the need for identifying predictors of resilience for students, pinpointing attention at the critical value of the hope theory, self beliefs, effort and the students' struggle with loneliness. The APA report on teachers' needs, based on the ratings of 2334 teachers from 49 States in USA reported their requests for professional development not only in curricular dilemmas, but also in effective classroom management and instructional strategies, and calling attention at their wishes to learn more about means for motivating students regardless their diversity in skills and difficulties (Coalition for Psychology in Schools and Education, 2006, August). The goals of the current paper are to present the educational implications of the salutogenic paradigm, within the new trends of resilience research and to exemplify the contribution of the hope theory and loneliness research to education of students, and to provide educational implications for teachers' training. Resilience and the Salutogenic approach