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The Applicability of the Risk and Resilience Model to Social Problems of Students with Learning Disabilities: Response to Bernice Wong
Author(s) -
Bryan Tanis
Publication year - 2003
Publication title -
learning disabilities research and practice
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 2.018
H-Index - 21
eISSN - 1540-5826
pISSN - 0938-8982
DOI - 10.1111/1540-5826.00065
Subject(s) - learning disability , psychology , psychological resilience , resilience (materials science) , special education , developmental psychology , cognitive psychology , mathematics education , social psychology , physics , thermodynamics
The purpose of this article is to respond to Bernice Wong's questions regarding the efficacy of the risk and resilience model for studying social problems in students with learning disabilities. Two factors render this framework particularly inviting to special education researchers. First, it is inherently optimistic because it assumes that once we identify factors that contribute to resilience, we can train less‐resistant individuals to be more resilient. As such, it moves us away from deficit models to empowering models. Second, the model forces us to look beyond the characteristics of the individual to consider external factors that have a significant influence on development and behavior. At the same time, however, we still need to advance our knowledge regarding the basic dimensions of social problems among students with learning disabilities. Hence, this article argues for multiple approaches to advancing knowledge about students with learning disabilities.