Social skills self-appraisal of children with specific arithmetic disabilities

Previous research in subtype analysis identified a group of children with specific arithmetic disabilities (AD) who demonstrated social skills deficits in the context of a particular pattern of neuropsychological strengths and weaknesses. In this study, the social skills of 14 children with AD were measured by parent, teacher, and self-report on the Social Skills Rating System (Gresham and Elliott, 1990) to assess for evidence of social skills deficits and to compare the children's self-appraisals with the adults' ratings. Comparisons with 13 same-age classmates revealed deficits according to parents' and teachers' ratings, but the AD participants failed to report their deficits. Discrepancies in the ratings were positively related to visual-spatial dysfunction but were not related to left-side sensory-perceptual dysfunction. Additional studies are needed to examine the determinants of inaccurate self-appraisal of social skills among children with AD.