Social Competence in Children with Learning and Autism Spectrum Disorders

Objective: The present study has been carried out to compare the social competence in two groups of students with Autism Disorder (AD) and Learning Disorders (LD). Methods: This research was a kind of descriptive research with 2 comparative groups. 90 learning and Autistic disorder students aged 10 to 13 years (45 LD & 45 AD) were selected randomly as a statistical sample. For the assessment of social competence, Felner 4 dimensions Social Competence Test (SCT) has been used. This test has 47 Items with 4 subscales. The data were analyzed using T-test. Results: The results revealed that social competence mean scores of learning disorder students were significantly higher than those of students with autism disorder (P<0.0005). In addition, the mean scores of girls were significantly more than that of boys in both groups. Conclusion: Findings confirm that autistic students have not reached social competence, because of theory of mind and executive function impairments and students with learning disorder have poor social competence, because of impairment in social interpreting and poor academic achievements.