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A Research Review and AlternativeHypothesis Explaining the Link Between

Learning Disability and Delinquency

Katherine A. Larson

nk betw een learning disability and delinquencyevaluated. Research from diverse ields is integrated and an alterna-

is proposed to explain the link between learning disability and delin-The a lternative hypothesis postulates that ineffective social cognitive

skills increase risk or delinquency in learning disabled youth. Futuresuggested.

elinquency is of serious concernto contemporary society (Larson,

years. Moreover, adjudicated

It is quite clear, despite disparity in

is much higher than in theerved in LD programs4.3% ofthe K-12 school population

1984). Estima tes of prev-range from 26% (Comp-

73% (Swanstrom et al., 1977).

D univant, Smith, & Sutton,and LD youth have greater re-

Consequently, development of ef-

, developm ent of effective preven-treatment program s is related

to knowledge of why LD youth are atincreased risk for delinquency. Thus,there is a compelling an d urgent needfor empirical investigations examin-ing potential causal links betweenlearning disability and delinquency.Prior to such research efforts, thereis an immediate need to synthesizehistorical and current data and eval-uate empirical support of existingcausal hypotheses. This paper willreview and evaluate previously pro-posed hypotheses as well as interpretresearch that suggests an alternativehypothesis.

CAUSAL EXPLANATIONSOF THE LINK BETWEEN LDAND DELINQUENCYFactors such as anomie, social dis-organization, poverty, and racismundoubtedly increase risk for delin-quency (Shoemaker, 1984). Yet dataindicate that LD youth and y outh withattention deficits a re at greater risk fordelinquency than NLD peers whenfactors of age, race, and socioecono-mic status are held constant (Broder eta l , 1981; Keilitz & D univ ant, 1986;Satterfield, Hoppe, & Schell, 1982).Accordingly, professionals havelooked beyond dem ographic variablesto explain the link between learningdisability an d delinquency . Currently,there are three hypotheses that at-

tempt to explain the link betweenlearning disability and delinquency.The School Eailure Hypothesis

This vew postulates that learningdisability leads to school failure, whichleads to a negative self-image, which inturn results in school dropout anddelinquency. This hypothesis is anextrapolation of Cohen's (1955) socio-logically based "middle-class measur-ing rod" explanation of delinquency,proposing that need to achieve inschool is adopted and aspired to by allsocial classes. Accordingly, it is hy-pothesized that youth with learningdisabilities seek out delinquen t-pronepeer groups to satisfy increased needsfor recognition and achievement. Theschool failure hypothesis implies thatschool suspension and dropout in-crease an LD youth's opportunity fordelinquent behavior.

Evaluation of the School FailureHypothesis. Support for the schoolfailure hypothesis comes from clinicalobservation, school records, and testsof basic ac adem ic skills. These studiesconsistently report school failure anddropout to be a strong and persistentcorrelate of official delinquency,school misbehavior, and self-reporteddelin que nt beh avio r (e.g.. West, 1984).Further support for this hypothesiscomes from research by Levin, Zig-mond, and Birch (1985), who foundthat LD youth have greater rates ofschool dropout than NLD peers.Nevertheless, evidence from aca-demic remediation studies does notsupport a direct causal relationshipbetween academic achievement anddelinquency in LD youth. Keilitz andD univa nt (1986) evaluated an inten-sive academic intervention programfor LD delinquents and found thatdelinquency was reduced in some sub-jects; however, changes in delinquentbehavior w ere not related to improve-ment in academic achievement. Theauthors suggest that interpersonal rap-port between tutor and delinquentaccounted for reduction in delinq uen-cy. Lars on (1986) also found acad em icintervention unrelated to delinquentbehavior. From a pop ulation of youth

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from three co rrectional ins titutions, 60youth categorized as either learningdisabled, low achieving, or averageachieving, were matched on demo-graphic, neighborhood, and criminalhistory variables. Larson found that23% of the learnin g disab led, 14% ofthe low achieving, and 19% of the av-erage achieving delinquents earned ahigh school diploma while incar-cerated. The high school diploma didnot reflect level of academic achieve-ment but it did represent the amountof academ ic learning time a youth h adbeen provided w hile incarcerated. Yet,recidivism rates for the three groupswere 52% , 42%, and 27%, respectively.Furthermore, during parole, 91% ofnew criminal convictions for the LDdelinquents were for very seriouscrimes (i.e., a 2-year confinemen t timefor the first offense) com pared to 71%of the low-achieving delinquents'new convictions.

Finally, research does not support acausal relationship between droppingout of school an d d elinquency. Elliottand Voss (1974) exam ined the correla-tion between school dropout anddelinquency in 2,000 California stu-dents and found that students whodropped out of school did indeed havehigher rates of delinquency tha n thosewho gradu ated; however, the relation-ship between dropout and delinquen-cy was reversed. That is, delinquencyrates for school dropouts peakedbefore dropping out and declined afterquitting school. Evidence from thisstudy in conjunction with the Levin etal. (1985) data suggest that p oor socialadjustment, including delinquency,may account for school dropou t in LDyouth . If this is the case, school failurewould be an effect and not a cause ofsocial misbehavior and delinquencyfor learning disabled youth.The DifferentialTreatment Hypothesis

According to the differential treat-ment position, youth with learningdisabilities and nonhandicappedpeers engage in the same rate and kindof delinquent behaviors; however,police, social workers, and other of-ficials treat LD y outh differently so as

to increase incidence of arrest and/oradjudication. Support for this hypo-thesis comes primarily from researchby Broder and colleagues (Broder eta l , 1981; Zim merm an, Rich, Keilitz, &Broder, 1981). Brode r et al. found thatLD youth were adjudicated at abouttwice the rate as N LD peers while bothgroups self-reported similar delin-quent behavior. Consequently, theresearchers postulated differentialtreatment to account for the higherincidence of adjudication in LDyouth.Evaluation of the Differential Treat-ment Hypothesis. There are severallimitations of Broder et al. data. First,the self-report instrument and scoringin the Broder research failed to mea-sure chronicity and seriousness of

delinquen t behavior. Tha t is, Broder etal. (1981) asked L D an d N LD youth toconfirm if they had ever engaged in aspecific delinquent act. These datashowed the two groups to be sim ilar interms of self-reported delinquent be-havior. A problem with this method isthat the two groups could appearequally delinquent even though onegroup engaged in delinquent behav iorat a much greater rate than the othergroup. Ad ditionally, as is the difficultywith most self-report instruments, theitem content of the scale primarilymeasured less serious criminal be-haviors. Such instruments are lesscapable of differentiating populationson the basis of incarcerable delin-quent behavior (e.g., Hindelang,Hirschi, & Weis, 1979), and whenitems are aggregated into a singleglobal score, as was the case in B roderet al., the trivial items further outweighthe more serious items as an assess-ment of delinquency. Thus, the twogroups were not differentiated onseriousness of delinquent behavior.Indeed, the definition of delinquencyin this study was confounded becauseno distinction was made betweenstatus offenders and criminal of-fenders.

Recognizing the need for m easuringchronicity, Zimmerman et al. (1981)examined the same subjects by askingthem to estimate how many times intheir entire life they had engaged in a

specific delinquent act. Criticisms the aforementioned Broder et al . sturegarding severity apply to the Zimerman data. Additionally, Zimmema n et al.'s self-report d ata are furthsuspect because thinking an d m emoproblems in subjects with learnidisabilities are likely to interfere wiability to make accurate estimates lifetime-frequency behavior. Zimmeman et al. argued that the self-repoinstrument had adequate reliabiliand validity; however, reliability fures appear not to be derived fromlearning disabled pop ulation. The fthat Zimmerman et al. found that Lyouth reported significantly/ewer dlinquen t acts than N LD peers, tendsincrease skepticism in the reliabilitythis LD self-report data. It seemunreasonable that a population youth consistently found to be lesocially effective, m ore im pulsive, afrequently more aggressive shoucommit fewer delinquent acts thnonhandicapped peers.

Broder et al. (1981) and Zimmman et al. (1981) proposed the dferential treatment hypothesis to eplain the apparent confiict betwehigh LD official adjudication raand low LD self-report rates of delquent behavior. Such disparate finings may more appropriately explained as a function of the sereport instrument and scoring.Other evidence suggests that Lyouth behave differently from nohandicapped peers in terms of delquent behavior. Keilitz and Duniva(1986), in a study of 1,900 youtfound that LD youth self-reportsignificantly greater rates of delquency and violent acts than matchNLD peers. Official arrest and addication rates were also higher for tLD adolesce nts. An 11-year follow-study of 2,700 paroled delinque(California Youth Authority, 19found that characteristics associatwith a learning disability, such severe low achievement in readiand math, and reduced mental atitude and evidence of neurologiabnormality, significantly differtiated young parolees on chronicand degree of violent behavior.Furthermore, the differential tre

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ment hypothesis is contradicted byZimmerman et al.'s (1981) own re-search, which found that, after adju-dication, LD and NLD delinquentshad equal probability of incarcera-tion. Similarly, Keilitz and Dunivant(1986) found that youth with learningdisability were no more likely thannonhandicapped peers to receive se-vere disposition from the court. Lar-son (1985) also found no significantdifferences between age of first con-finement and duration of confinementin LD and low-achieving delinquents.Some have proposed that differen-tial treatment takes place at the arrestphase prior to adjudication or disposi-tion procedures (Keilitz & Dunivant,1986). This m ay be the case; however,other research finds that arrest issignificantly correlated with frequen-cy and severity of delinquen t behavior(e.g., Blums tein & Cohen, 1976). Thus,higher rates of arrest and adjudicationfor youth with learning disabilitiesmay m ore directly reflect frequent an dserious delinquent behavior. In sup-port of this conclusion, Keilitz andDunivant (1986) found a positive cor-relation between LD self-report, adju-dication, ana arrest; this co rroboratesother juvenile criminology researchdemonstrating that self-report ratesand seriousness of delinquent be-havior strongly correlate with gettingcaught and being known by the police(e.g., Friday & Stewart, 1977). Refuta-tion of the differential treatment hy-pothe sis is further prese nted by Keilitzand Du nivant (1986), who found in alongitudinal study that LD boys weremore likely than NLD peers to be-come delinquent as they grow older.The Susceptihility Hypothesis

This position contends that learn-ing disabilities are frequently accom-panied by "a variety of socially trou-blesome personality characteristics"(Mu rray, 1976, p. 26). This hypo thesiscan be interpreted from two distinctperspectives.Evaluation of the Susceptibility Hy-One interpretation takes theposition that social skill is a responsepredisposition or underlying per-

sonality trait. Thus, observable be-havior is only a refiection of "am oun t"of social skillfulness. Youth withlearning disabilities are seen as atincreased risk for delinquency be-cause they are "low" in social skill-fulness.This approach is a tautological useofthe concept of social skill. That is, ifa learning disabled youth does no tbecome delinquent it is inferred thatthe youth was in possession o fa satis-factory level of social skill; simultan-eously it is explained that the youth'snondelinquent behavior occurred be-cause the youth had a satisfactory levelof social skill. McF all (1982) has point-ed out that an individual's "inferredlevel of social skill cannot be used inthis way to account for the quality ofthe very beha vior from w hich the skillswere inferred" (p. 3).The alternative interpretation ofthesusceptibility hypothesis takes theposition that negative social-person-ality characteristics (e.g., impulsivity,poor reception to social cues) arespecific social characteristics that in-crease the likelihood of delinquentbehavior. This perspective avoids theproblems of an underlying trait con-cept of social skill; however, an imp or-tant criticism of this hypothesis is thatit fails to address the issue of whatcaused the inappropriate social char-acteristics in the first place. That is,sources other than learning dis-abilities produce negative social char-acteristics that might increase suscep-tibility to delinquency. Additionally,an d significantly, this interpre tation ofthe susceptibility hypothesis lacks aunified framework for explaining howa variety of socially ineffective be-haviors can be accounted for by anunderlying learning disability.An Alternative Hypothesis

As reviewed, a number of pro-fessionals have speculated that learn-ing disability contributes to increasedrisk for delinqu ent behavior, an d w hileit seems clear that a correlational asso-ciation between learn ing disability anddelinquency has been demonstrated,data supporting a causal relationshiphave not been generated by research.

The school failure and differentialtreatment hypotheses are not support-ed by empirical evidence. The suscep-tibility hypothesis lacks empiricaltesting, and the concept of suscep-tibility appears to be too global to besystematically testable. Clearly, analternative hypo thesis is warranted toexplain the link between learning dis-ability and delinquency.One approach to developing analternative causal hypothesis wouldbe to identify a specific skill related tosocial adjustment for which evidenceexists that (a) differences or deficits inthe skill are empirically associatedwith delinquent behavior, (b) sociallymaladjusted LD youth are highly like-ly to be ineffective in the skill, and (c)the skill identified must be shown tomediate various behavioral responsesacross different social situations (toaccount for a variety of socially inef-fective behaviors, any of which mightbe a delinquent act or related to adelinquent episode).

One skill that may fulfill theserequirements is social cognitive prob-lem solving. D'Zurilla and Goldfried(1969) conceptualized problem solv-ing as both a self-control procedureand a learning process involvingcognitive strategies. Social cognitiveproblem-solving skills are hypothe-sized as general skills applicable to avariety of situations and potentiallyuseful for increasing generalization ofsocially com petent responses.The following three sections willreview relevant problem-solving re-search suggesting that difficulties insocial cognitive problem -solving skillsare associated with social maladjust-ment, that they mediate social com-petence, and that learning disabledyouth and delinquent youth are morelikely to have difficulties with theseskills than are nonhandicapped andnondelinquent peers.

SOCIAL COG NITIVEINEFFECTIVENESS ANDSOCIAL MALADJUSTMENTThere has been considerable sup-port for the hypoth esis tha t ineffectivesocial cognitive problem-so lving skills

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lead to emotional and behavioral dis-orders (e.g., D'Zurilla & Goldfried,1969). Individuals whose social prob-lem-solving processes are characteris-tically ineffective are more likely to beviewed as maladjusted, socially in-competent, or abnormal.Spivack, Platt, and Shure (1976)found drug addict, psychiatric, and"poorly self-regulated" adolescentpopulations to be less effective than acomparison group of socially compe-tent peers on cognitive social problemsolving-skills such as weighing prosand cons, generating options, concep-tualizing a step-by-step process to agoal, and perceiving the situation fromanother's perspective. Furthermore,Spivack et al. found that ineffectivecognitive social problem -solving skillswere consistently m anifested in social-

ly incompe tent popu lations of all ageswhen IQ and verbal fiuency wereheld constant.NONSOCIAL COGNITIVEPROBLEM-SOLVINGDIFnCULTIES ANDLEARNING DISABILITIES

It has been consistently reportedthat, when faced with nonsocial tasks,youth with learning disabilities fre-quently exhibit profoun d difficultiesin many cognitive problem-solvingfunctions. Learning disabled indi-viduals are thought to fail many tasksnot only because of basic knowledgedeficits but also because they fail tospontaneously employ appropriateproblem-solving skills (e.g., Reid &Hr esko , 1981; Torg esen, 1982). In-deed, some believe that ineffectiveproblem-solving abilities underlielearning disabilities. Difficulties insuch skills include identifying rele-vant variables, impulse control, eval-uation of possible strategies, per-sistence, and self-monitoring (e.g.,Forness & Esveldt, 1975; Hagen, Bar-clay, & New man , 1982).SOCIAL COGNITIVEPROBLEM-SOLVINGDIFFICULTIES ANDLEARNING DISABILITIES

Given that youth w ith learning dis-abilities manifest cognitive inefficien-

cies in nonsocial tasks, and con-sidering the frequently noted socialdifficulties of LD youth, it is reason-able to speculate that m any LD youthwill manifest ineffective cognitiveproblem-solving skills when facingsocial tasks.

Indeed, investigators have pointedout that youth with learning dis-abilities have difficulties, com pared tonon han dicap ped peers, in a variety ofcognitive social problem -solving skillssuch as interpreting the mood or com-munications of others (e.g., Lerner,1981), generating and choo sing qualitysocial solutions (e.g.. Hazel, Schu-maker, Sherman, & Sheldon, 1982),predicting and evaluating social con-sequences (e.g., Bruno , 1981; Haz el etal , 1982), interpreting situations (e.g..Pearl & Cosden, 1982), taking theperspective of others (e.g., Bachara,1976), and controlling impulsive be-havior (e.g., Hallahan, Kauffman, &Lloyd, 1985). Schumaker and hercolleagues (Hazel et al., 1982; Schu-maker, Hazel, Sherman, & Sheldon,1982) found that NLD adolescentsscored significantly better on socialcognitive problem solving than LDand delinquent youth, who scoredsimilarly. Schumaker et al. did reportthat the LD group was heterogeneousin terms of social cognitive problem-solving ability, with some LD youthperforming as well as NLD peers.Unfortunately, because the LD youthwere not assessed on social adjust-ment, it is not possible to determinefrom this study how much of thevariance in social adjustment wasaccounted for by skill in social prob-lem solving.SOCIAL COGNITIVEPROBLEM-SOLVINGDIFFICULTIES ANDDELINQUENCY

Delinquent youth, a heterogeneouspopulation including many youthwho fit clinical descriptions of learn-ing disability (Prout, 1981), are consis-tently found to be less skillful in avariety of social cognitive problem-solving skills when com pared to non -delinquents. Poor perspective taking(e.g.. Cha ndle r, 1973; Little, 1979), po orimpulse control (e.g.. White, 1965), and

inability to generate multiple aneffective solutions (e.g., Larson, 198Freedman, Rosenthal, Donahoe, Schludt, 1978) are three specific pr oblem-solving difficulties historicaldemonstrated in delinquent popultions.Researchers have docum ented othsocial cognitive problem-solving skdifficulties in delinquent youth. Fexample, after testing 1,173 instittionalized delinqu ents, using the Cafornia I-level topology (interratreliability was .88), Jesness (197reported tha t 54% of the delinquenhad difficulty in (a) understandinthat behavior has something to dwith getting what one wants (i.egeneral orientation to plan); (b) etimating differences among otheand between self and others an

understanding needs, feelings, anmotives of o thers (i.e., perspective taing); (c) pla nn ing for the future befoacting (i.e., impulse control and prolem formulation); and (d) predictinaccurately others' responses to theown actions (i.e., predicting consquences and decision making). Schmaker et al. (1982) found both Lyouth and delinquents less skillthan normal peers on the sociproblem-solving skills of identifyithe problem, generating solutionevaluating consequences, and selecing an adaptive solution. Lars(1985) found that nearly all socsolutions generated by a ran domly slected group of delinquents were inefective as judged by independeraters using a criterion-referencrater's manual.Additionally, self-assessment problem-solving ability has been potulated by Ravell (1979) as an essetial skill for effective problem solvinLarson (1985) found that incarceratdelinquents who were learning dabled or low achieving were unableaccurately assess or predict their copetence in generating effective sotions to social problems.

MEDIATIONAL CAPACITYOF SOCIALCOGNITIVE SKILLSAs previously argued, to supportspecific skill deficit as a causal fact

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its necessary to demonstrate the medi-of that skill on overtocial behavior and ultimately ona paucity of research testing the

of social prob-on overt socialas directly measured in sam-f learning disabled or de linquent

Nevertheless, existing studies sug-a mediational function of socialon

as measuredirectly. For example, Feindler, Mar-iott, and Iwata (1984) trained 36cting-out adjudicated youth in self-egulation an d cognitive problem solv-ng. Daily disruptive behavior andggressive incidents in school weresignificantly reduced compared to noreatment control. Snyder and White1979) found cognitive self-instructionraining, compared to contingencywareness and no treatment control,esulted in significant improvement inaily living social skills of incar-and Ger-

so-ially relevant overt social beha vior inD and low-achieving incarceratedto matched controls.reover, in this study, overt beha viorhanges were positively correlated

in cognitive problem-solving skill.Fvaluation of the Alternative Hypo-Evidence indicates that social

re associated with social maladjust-and specifically with delinquen-

to be at greater risk than non-for cognitive dif-iculties when faced with both socialnd nonsocial problems. Moreover,and youth withearning disabilities are found to

to be ineffective in skillsuch as perspective taking, impulsethe problem, gener-ultiple and effective solutions,

and under-

standing and using relevant socialcues. Lastly, and importantly, socialcognitive problem-solving skills ap-pear to mediate overt social behavior.Given this evidence, an alternativeexplanation o fthe link between learn-ing disability and delinquency ap-pears reasonable although in need ofclear empirical support. Specifically,youth with learning disabilities maybe at increased risk for delinquencybecause they are more likely to be inef-fective in social cognitive problem-solving skills.It is not clear from the currentresearch how deficits in social prob-lem solving might increase risk fordelinquent responses. One explana-tion is that deficiencies in social prob-lem solving impair ability to controlimpulsive responses, assess socialproblem variables, generate effectivesocial strategies, and regulate, throughself-monitoring, on-going social inter-action. Many researchers (e.g., Kol-ligian & Sternberg, 1987) would labeldeficits in these skills as a deficiencyor inefficiency in metacognition.The proposal that ineffective meta-cognition impairs functioning in LDyouth is not new. Researchers havehypothesized that academic learningdifficulties of LD youth may be theresult of ineffective metacognitiveskills (e.g.. Baker, 1982; Loper, 1980;Wong, 1979). Several researchers (e.g..Brown, Bransford, Ferrara, & Cam-pione, 1983; Caranaugh & Perlmutter,1982) have po inte d ou t the difficulty ofand need for clarifying the concept ofmetacognition. Nevertheless, recentresearch by Slife, Weiss, and Bell(1985) up hol ds the potential utility ofthe concept for describing learningdisabled populations in terms ofknowledge about and regulation ofcognition.SOCIAL METACOGNITION

Metacognitive skills have been de-fined as superordinate skills requiringknowledge about how to know andknowledge about one's own cognitiveprocessing (Brown, 1975; Flavell &Wellman, 1977). Researchers such asFlavell, Wellman, and Brown haveonly alluded to metacognitive skills in

terms of social problem solving, al-though application of metacognitiveawareness and metacognitive controlconcepts to the social domain seemsreasonable and useful.The aw areness aspect of metacogni-tion has been defined to include anawareness of person variables (i.e.,self-appraisal of personal attributesthat affect the task) and awareness oftask variables (i.e., knowledge of pa-rameters, exp ectations, and situationattributes th at affect the task). Accord-ingly, metacognitive social awarenessskill can be conceived as the ability toidentify and differentiate relevantsocial cues about oneself and others aswell as about the social situation ingeneral. Delinquent youth and youthwith learning disabilities appear tohave difficulties w ith this type of socialmetacognition. As previously re-viewed, both groups of youth havebeen found to be ineffective in com-prehending and using relevant socialvariables, in being aware of another'sperspective, and in accurately evaluat-ing their own social problem-solvingcompetence.The control aspect of metacognitionhas been defined to include skills thatregulate efficient selection and on-going application of effective behav-iors. Accordingly, metacognitive so-cial control skill can be defined as theability to control impulsive responses,define the problem, generate appro-priate solutions, evaluate conse-quences, and monitor performance.As previously reviewed, researchershave consistently found delinquentyouth less effective in these kinds ofsocial cognitive skills compared tonondelinquents.CURRENT AND FUTURERESEARCH TESTING THEALTERNATIVEHYPOTHESIS

Research is needed to systemati-cally define and specify social meta-awareness and social meta-controlskills. Th us far, there has been almostno effort to specifically identify anddescribe social knowledge and skillthat fulfills the meta-awareness func-tion. In a social situation this would6, June/July 1988 36 1


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include knowledge of variables aboutself, abou t others, about social norms,or about the social environment. Re-search exam ining this hypothesis willhave to determine if there are socialvariables consistently relevant to avariety of social situations and ifknowledge of these variables en-hances general social performance.Preliminary evidence (Larson, 1983)indicates that there may be somesocial variables that socially compe-tent adolescents perceive as signifi-cant for solving a variety of socialproblems. Larson asked "sociallycompetent" high school students andmatched incarcerated delinquents toname factors (i.e., about themselves,about others, and about the situationin general) they felt were important tofind out about or know about whentrying to solve a social problem. Therewere statistically significant qualita-tive as well as quantitative differencesbetween delinquent and socially com-petent adolescent responses regardingsituational, self, and other variablesidentified as impo rtant to social prob-lem solving.

Not only will it be necessary to de-scribe social meta-awareness varia-bles; it will also be essential to under-stand how social meta-awarenessskills interact with social meta-co ntrolskills. That is, effective problem solv-ing has been hypothesized (Hagen etal., 1982) as based upon a state ofacquired knowledge (i.e., awareness)as well as a process of using thatknowledge (i.e., contro l). Accordingly,it may be that skill in both meta-awareness and meta-control functionsis necessary for effective social func-tioning because of the possible recip-rocal nature of these knowledge areas.In this regard, while working withLD delinquents, Larson found thatmeta-awareness of a social variablewas insufficient for enhancing themeta-control skill of solution genera-tion. The delinquents simply did notknow how to "use" the awarenessknowledge. For example, "emotionallevel" was one variable taught asimportant to recognize and interpretwhen facing a social problem situa-tion. In previous research this variablehad been identified by socially compe-

tent adolescents as important for solv-ing social problems. D elinquents w ithlearning disabilities learned to spon-taneously recall this as an importantproblem-solving variable. However,during simulation problem-solvingexperiences, determination of emo-tional level as "high" or "low" had nodifferential affect on cognitive controlskills in terms of what delinquentssuggested the solution or strategyshould be. Delinquents also failed tomodify their solutions on the basis ofmeta-awareness of other variablessuch as confidence level, expertise,number of people involved, relation-ship to the other, and so forth. Findingthat delinq uen ts had difficulty in usingmeta-awareness knowledge suggeststhat researchers need to examinewhether delinquent youth and learn-ing disabled youth are merely una-ware of relevant social meta-variablesor whether they are unable to use theknowledge that awareness of the vari-able brings in regulating solutiongeneration.

Other lines of research must providea more direct test of the hypothesisthat social metacognitive ineffective-ness increases risk for delinquency inLD youth. Studies are needed todemonstrate that social metacognitivetraining enhances overt social be-havior in delinquen t and LD youth. Inthese studies it will be important todocument that enhancement of socialbehavior is positively correlated withchanges in metacognitive skills.Evidence suggests that cognitivetraining needs to train both meta-awareness and meta-control skills aswell as how to use these skills in areciprocal way. Previous social prob-lem-solving studies h ave failed to trainmeta-awareness skills; instead train-ing has focused exclusively uponmeta-co ntrol skills. Yet training effectshave been weak for changing overtsocial behavior or enhancing socialbehavior in novel contexts. Larsonand Gerber (1987) trained both meta-awareness and meta-control skills andfound significant positive behaviorchanges.Demonstrating the mediational ca-pacity of social metacognition intraining studies is insufficient, how-

ever, for concluding that social mtacognitive ineffectiveness increasrisk for delinquency. That is, causinfiuences cannot be inferred solefrom successful treatment. In orderfully support the proposed hypothesdata will be needed that demonstrathat delinquents actually manifeinefficiencies in social metacogniticompared to nondelinquents and thsocially maladjusted and adjustyouth with learning disabilities diffon social metacognitive problem-soing abilities.Lastly, there is a need to examithe relationship of specific socmetacognitive skills to overt behaviFor example, a components analystudy assessing and comparing tpotential effectiveness of training impulse control skills, meta-awarene

skills, and meta-control skills wouhelp to elucidate the relative imptance of these specific cognitive skito delinquent behavior.This paper has attempted to ingrate existing research data for tpurpose of developing a plausibcausal hypothesis elucidating a funtional relationship between learnidisability and delinquency. Testirelationships within the hypothewill require extensive and systemaresearch. It is hoped that issues aresearch questions discussed in tpaper will encourage future researefforts addressing this important issin contemporary society.ACKNOWLEDGMENTSI wish to thank Melvyn Semmel. Michael Gerband Joan Lieber for their comm ents on a draft ofpaper.

ABOUT THE AUTHORKatherine A. Larson is a researcher in the SpeEducation Research Laboratories, Graduate Schof Education at the University of California. SaBarbara. Current research interests include dequency prevention, social skill training for haviorally disordered adolescents, and dropout vention for inner city youth. Dr. Larson is curreprinciple investigator or PROJECT SELE-STAtesting the efficacy of social problem-so lving trainfor enhancing parole adjustment in LD delinqueDr. Larson is also principal investigator for PRJECT MAIN STREET a 3-year intervention pgram aimed at reducing inappropriate referraspecial education or school dropout in high-

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adolescents. Address: Katherine A. Larson.University of California, Graduate School of Educa-ion. Special Education P rogram. Santa Barbara ,A 93106.

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