Middle Eastern Journal of Disability Studies

Abstract
Background & Objectives: One of the psychological problems is special learning disabilities that affect children in different areas. This disorder can be problematic in all areas of a person's life. Learning problems cover a much wider range than academic problems, which requires attention to the social, emotional, and behavioral areas of a child's life. Various factors may influence children's learning difficulties. One of these factors is sensory processing styles. Multiple components may affect the relationship between sensory processing styles and children's learning difficulties. One of these components is a lack of parental attention. Some events in the family context seem partly responsible for learning problems. Recent evidence suggests that learning problem leads to academic failure and can be related to one of the most important causes of delinquency. Therefore, this study aimed to model the structural relationships of sensory processing styles with learning problems by mediating the role of parental failure in primary school students.
Methods: According to its purpose, this research was of an applied type, and in terms of data collection, it was cross–sectional and specifically employed a descriptive method of correlational type based on structural equation modeling. The statistical population consisted of all 2200 parents of third–grade high school boys in Babol City public primary schools, Iran, in the academic year of 2019–2020. To determine the sample size, according to the number of observed variables, allocation of 10 samples for each observed variable (20 variables observed in the model), and taking into account the possibility of incomplete questionnaires, 250 people were selected as the sample size. They were recruited using two–stage cluster sampling. In the first stage, 20 schools were selected from all 27 public schools in Babol. Then, in the second stage, out of all 40 classes, 13 classes were randomly selected. To collect the data, the Children's Sensory Processing Styles Questionnaire (Dean, 1999), the Colorado Learning Difficulties Questionnaire (Willcutt et al., 2011), and Barkley Deficits in Executive Functioning Scale (Barkley, 2011) were used. This research used descriptive statistics indices to describe the data, and structural regression equation modeling was used to analyze the data. Data analysis was done using SPSS version 18 and AMOS version 23 software.
Results: The paths of sensory processing styles and parental failure significantly and directly affected learning problems. Specifically, the effect and prediction of low sensory recording on learning problems were respectively 0.422 and 0.247; for sensory search on learning problems, –0.350 and 0.182; for sensory sensitivity to learning problems, 0.471 and 0.286; for sensory avoidance on learning problems, 0.446 and 0.306, and for parents' attention deficit to learning problems, 0.327 and 0.123 (p<0.01). Also, the indirect path of sensory processing styles mediated by parental attention deficit significantly affected the learning problems of the standardized values (β) obtained. Specifically, the overall effect of low sensory recording on learning problems through parental attention deficit was 0.547; the overall impact of sensory search on learning problems through parental attention deficit was –0.440; the overall effect of sensory sensitivity on problems learning through parental attention deficit was 0.628. In addition, the parents' overall effect of sensory avoidance on learning difficulties through parental attention deficit was 0.587 (p<0.001). Therefore, sensory processing styles and parental attention deficits affect learning problems, and research variables could predict 68% of learning variables.
Conclusion: According to the study results, sensory processing styles with learning difficulties with the mediating role of parental attention deficit play a significant role in elementary school students. The present study demonstrates the importance of cognitive factors such as sensory processing styles and social factors such as parental attention deficit to explain specific learning disorders.