Abstract
Learning difficulties related to childhood cancer with its intense physical and psychosocial stresses are examined by comparison of 22 oncology patients and 22 children referred for psychiatric/psychological evaluation. Findings demonstrate, among children undergoing treatment of cancer, some academic vulnerabilities for which psychosocial aspects may not fully account and which become prominent under comparisons of within-subject differences between normalized scores of the WISC-R Verbal IQ and the PIAT Reading (p < .05) or Spelling (p < .01) subtests. Moreover, when members of the oncology group, who had already been placed in learning disabilities programs, were added to those defined as significantly underachieving by McLeod's method, it appeared that nearly a third of the oncology sample were encountering marked academic inhibitions.
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