Theories explaining the social skills of children with learning difficulties and their educational applications

Abstract

The topic of social skills in children with learning disabilities is receiving increasing attention, and it is considered a fertile field for researchers to put forward their theoretical conceptions, and the practical solutions they see, which would provide service to children with learning disabilities, and also have a role in helping teachers to adapt positively to this category. Perhaps one of the ways to achieve this quest is to identify the concept of learning difficulties, the theories that explain it, its causes, characteristics, types. As well as the concept of social skills and their importance, identifying social skills in children with learning difficulties, studying and analyzing the theories explaining them, and their educational applications. The most important findings of the research: each of these theories has its advantages and disadvantages, and all of them serve the same purpose, but with different methods and methods of application; where the social learning theory focuses on learning by observation, and looks at failure in social performance as a behavior acquired by observation, and can be remedied by training. While the behavioral theory emphasizes the need to analyze the behavioral phenomenon into small partial units in order to reach a better understanding of the studied phenomenon as a whole. Finally, cognitive theory assumes that cognitive factors such as negative expectations and self-evaluation are the main causes of social skills deficiencies, as this theory focuses on the role of cognitive mental processes in the learning process. One of the most prominent proposals is to take advantage of the advantages of theories explaining social skills, and move away from their negatives in studying children with learning difficulties, and thus mixing all theories may achieve great success in the development of social skills in children with learning difficulties in order to reach better results.