Social-emotional learning for children with learning disabilities: a systematic review

ABSTRACT

Social-emotional learning programmes can be effective for typically-developing children and young people in improving their social-emotional skills. This systematic literature review, evaluating peer-reviewed literature from 2007 to 2018, investigated whether these programmes are also effective for children and young people with learning disabilities. The review found preliminary evidence of feasibility but little evidence of the effectiveness of combined social-emotional learning programmes. Play-based and social skills programmes, based on behavioural psychology and social learning theory show some evidence of effectiveness in improving the social skills of children and young people with learning disabilities. Future research needs to use more rigorous designs including larger samples, random assignment, robust measures and fidelity measures, or carry out studies with well-conducted Single Case Experimental Designs.

KEYWORDS:

• Social-emotional learning
• learning disability
• social skills
• interventions
• children

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. Please note, varying terms are used in different countries around the world or have been used in the past. In the UK, terms such as “retardation” and “handicap” are considered out-dated and/or offensive but were used as search terms here to capture as broad a range of literature as possible.