Evaluating the formation of mental schemata in learning disorders

Incrongruos images are usually emphasised in univocal perceptual conditions (Bonaiuto, Biasi, Giannini, 2008). By applying this finding to clinical and educational settings, we assessed the formation and consolidation of mental schemata (home, vehicles, human body, etc.) in children with learning disabilities vs. normal children, hypothesising the formers’difficulty in discriminating between anomalies and congruent images compared to the latter. Children of both genders (N-230), aged 7-11 years, were shown graphic boards with eighteen incrouent figures: sixteen proposed by Zazzo and Stamback (1964) and two chromatically anomalous ones (Bonaiuto, Giannini, Biasi & Bonaiuto). The figures included a “three-eared cat”, “fish with two feets” and “blue human body”, etc. Each child was asked whether each figure appeared “normal” or “strange” and, in the latter case, why. The children with consolidates mental schemata were able to identify anomalies; the others did not identify some. The children with “learning difficulties” were divided into two subgroups: one with strongly organically-based diagnosed difficulties and the other with learning difficulties of mainly psychogenic origin. The were no significant differences between the two groups in their ability to recognise perceptual anomalies. These findings open up a discussion on the urgency of taking action in schools with regard to learning difficulties of psychogenic origin, which are generally not properly dealt with. Through education with a didactic valence it was shown how children with various disabilities achieve significant improvements in recognition and discrimination ability with regard to the assessed mental schemata.