The Effect of Self-Regulation Empowerment Program Training on Academic Anxiety of Students with Specific Learning Disorder

Background: Students with specific learning disorder are faced with various physical and psychological stressful factors, that affect their quality of life. Considering the relationship between academic anxiety and self-regulation, as one of the methods capable of assisting students with specific learning disorder is self-regulation empowerment training. The current study aimed at determining the effect of self-regulation empowerment training program on academic anxiety of students with specific learning disorder. Method: The study used an experimental design with pretest/posttest and a control group. The study sample consisted of 28 students with specific learning disorder in Rasht city in 2019 that were selected by the convenience sampling method and randomly assigned to experimental and control groups. To collect the data, school anxiety scale (teacher report) was used before and after the intervention. A twelve-session self-regulation empowerment program training was conducted for the experimental group and no intervention was used for the control group. Results: The results of analysis of covariance showed that self-regulation empowerment training program improved coping with academic anxiety in students with specific learning disorder (p< 0.001). Conclusion: Based on the findings of the research, self-regulation empowerment training can improve the cognitive skills in students with specific learning disorder. Therefore, it is suggested that this intervention is applied for training of students with specific learning disorder.