Effects of Bullying on Mental Health of Adolescents with Learning Disabilities – An Example of Special Needs Education Longitudinal Study

• Main Authors: Haung, Ding-Yu, 黃鼎育
• Other Authors: Lin, Fu-Gong
• Format: Others
• Language: zh-TW
• Published: 2018
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/3r4q86

碩士 === 國防醫學院 === 公共衛生學研究所 === 106 === Background: In the current special education policy in Taiwan, high school students with disabilities are placed in ordinary classes together with the general students. Compared with general students, students with disabilities have less social skills, being more vulnerable to be bullied and peer exclusion. Objective：Aims were to (1) understand the situation of bullying on adolescents with learning disabilities, (2) understand the mental health of adolescents with learning disabilities, (3) explore the impact of bullying on mental health of adolescents with learning disabilities. Methods：A secondary data analysis method was used. The data were extracted from special needs education longitudinal study. Students with learning disabilities included in the database were analyzed as objects. A total of 329 ninth grade, 272 tenth grade and 147 twelfth grade students were involved in cross-sectional studies. Results: The results of this study showed that there were factors resulted in negative mental health, such as late attendance, conflict with parents, participation in the student’s online community, conscious teachers’ less help in learning, conscious schoolwork difficulties, and overall learning performance decreased. Experience of being bullied is was an independent influence factor of the mental health status, caused the mental health condition to become worse, and had an antagonistic effect on parental and teacher-student relationship, thereby modified its influence on mental health. Conclusion: The proportion of learning disabilities youngsters who were bullied (68.9%) was much higher than that of regular schoolchildren (10.9%). It showed that the problem of learning disabilities was affected by bullying. Parental and teacher-student relationships could modify the experience of being bullied and mental health, highlighting the importance of parental and teacher-student relationships. In addition, the study found that young people with learning disabilities who joined the students’ online community had worse mental health. Whether they suffered new forms of cyberbullying is also an issue that needs to be explored.