Thesis (Ph.D.) - Cairo University - Faculty of Medicine - Department of Family Medicine

Aim of the Study: To identify the relation between parental emotional expression and anxiety in children with specific learning disorders and its correlation with serum cortisol level. Objectives: To assess anxiety of children with specific learning disorders by using Taylor scale of anxiety, to assess the emotional expression of parents by using emotional expression scale, to assess the impact of parental emotional expression on the anxiety of the children by measuring their cortisol level, and to evaluate the effectiveness of parental educational counseling program in management of anxiety of the children. Methods: Interventional study performed on 140 children with specific learning disorders, and their parents who received 10 sessions of parental educational counseling program in the unit of learning disability of the educational hospital of Helwan University. Interactive lectures, assignments and constructive feedbacks were used in conduction of all sessions of the parental program of learning disorders. In sessions concerning effective parenting, behavioral modification and anger management; role playing used to illustrate the way for applying them. Data were collected from parents by expressed emotions scale and from the children by Taylor anxiety scale.Serum cortisol level of the children was measured before applying the intervention to assess their anxiety. Scores were measured before and after the intervention to assess the quality of the program. Results: More than half of the children were boys with an average age between 10-11 years old, most of them were of middle sibling order and in the sixth educational level of primary stage

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