The Relationship Between Parents' Socioeconomic Status and Education Level,and Adult Occupational and Educational Achievement of Children with Learning Disabilities

Abstract

Reports about the educational and occupational achievement of children with learning disabilities (LD) in adulthood have been inconsistent, ranging from optimistic to negative. Generally, studies that show good outcome have tended to base their conclusions on subjects from high socioeconomic backgrounds. In the present study, data were extracted from a longitudinal study (Spreen, 1981) on 226 subjects with learning disabilities in order to determine the nature and extent of the relationship between parents' educational level and socioeconomic status (SES), and the occupational and academic outcome of children with LD. A significant correlation was found between the parent and subject variables, accounting for 28% of the variance. Fathers' SES was the major contributing parent variable. The relationship held across groups of children with LD (children with hard and soft neurological signs, and no neurological findings) and controls. The contribution of SES to selected outcome variables was also compared to the contribution of intelligence and degree of neurological impairment. Because SES can confound other variables of interest, it was concluded that this variable should be carefully controlled in future studies.

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