Life Success
For Students With Learning Disabilities:
A Parent Guide

Emotional Coping Strategies

All people with learning disabilities experience stress in their lives as a result of living with learning problems. Such stress can be experienced in a variety of settings -- school, work, home, and social life. In some cases, the stress can be so significant that it leads to psychological difficulties such as anxiety and depression.

• Awareness of the situations that trigger stress;
• Recognition of developing stress;
• Availability/access to and use of coping strategies.

For example, a successful adult with learning disabilities in our study manages her anxiety attacks by recognizing that reading aloud in a group triggers anxiety, physical symptoms such as rapid breathing are signs of stress, and slow deep breathing reduces her anxiety.

Successful individuals have developed strategies for reducing stress and avoiding resulting psychological difficulties. Such strategies include seeking counseling, asking others to do unmanageable tasks on the job, changing activities periodically so stress does not build up, expressing feelings, asserting oneself, utilizing peer support and encouragement, learning to ask for help, planning ahead for difficult situations, keeping away from negative or critical persons, obtaining medication if necessary, working out differences with friends and family, and sharing with sympathetic family members.

Whereas recognizing triggers and using coping strategies helps successful individuals with learning disabilities cope, unsuccessful persons with learning disabilities report being blindsided by events that cause stress. When overly stressed or emotionally wrought, they have great difficulty thinking of potential resources -- both internal and external -- to help them reduce stress and regain stability.

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