Cyber Bullying and Traumatic Experiences: The Impact on Learning Disabilities

Abstract

The aim of our research is to investigate the effects of traumatic experiences that teens with learning disorders had to go through. The sample of our study is consisted of 160 high school students who were referred in a web line evaluation form, due to low school performance. The research tool that was used was ACHENBACH’s self-report questionnaire for children and teenagers and more specifically the subscales for anxiety-depression and depression-withdrawal. Frequencies, percentages of responses and means have been calculated. An analysis of variance (one way anova) to assess the differences in the averages of students' responses to the variable "experiencing a traumatic event" was also performed. The results showed that there are significant differences in the level of statistical significance p <0,01 between the means of students who say they have experienced a traumatic event and those who report that they haven’t. Particularly decisive traumatic experience for the students' mentality seems to be the in-school violence received by students and the death of a loved one. Application features that have to do with the cyber bulling are also presented briefly.