Key words: adolescents, learning difficulties, narrative representations
Objective: Learning difficulties are the result of many complex factors. In clinical practice, we find that adolescents with learning difficulties often express a specific kind of mental pain that needs to be systematized and understood in depth. In this work we’ll describe a profile of these adolescents that emphasizes which factors are particularly involved. We will describe the results of a clinical research on 40 cases of adolescents with learning difficulties that we have in treatment. The aim of this research is to develop a precise description of mental functioning of adolescents with learning difficulties.
Method: In this research we use two tests: the Thematic Apperception Test (TAT) and the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children (WISC-III).
Results and Conclusions: In our sample, learning difficulties are not linked to lower cognitive level, but can be understood as a maturational gap. In the narratives of the adolescents with LD we find a typical adolescent narrative: in most cases the protagonist starts from a position of dependence finally reaching a position of greater autonomy. Most of story plots are dynamic, the motivation that drives the protagonist to move through the story in most cases is desire and the majority of the stories provides a positive outcome. There are significant differences between the males and females in our sample.