Investigating quality of life and self-stigma in Hong Kong children with specific learning disabilities.
Hong Kong kids with specific learning disabilities feel extra shame and lower life quality—buffer this with effort-based praise and peer success stories.
01Research in Context
What this study did
Chan et al. (2017) asked Hong Kong children with specific learning disabilities how they feel about themselves.
They also asked typically developing classmates the same questions.
The team used surveys to measure self-stigma and quality of life.
What they found
Kids with SpLD scored higher on self-stigma and lower on quality of life.
Their classmates without LD did not report these same struggles.
How this fits with other research
Kiliç Tülü et al. (2026) looked at Israeli kids and saw a different picture. In their study the LD label itself did not hurt social skills; poor grades and behavior did.
The two studies seem to clash, but they measured different things. Yi asked kids how they feel inside; Burcu asked teachers to rate outside behaviors.
Levkovich et al. (2025) adds another layer. Their survey showed teachers can be more negative than AI tools when judging students with LD. This outside negativity may feed the self-stigma Yi captured.
Why it matters
You can’t erase the LD, but you can erase the shame. Praise effort, not just correct answers. Let students pick topics they love for reading or math tasks. Share short success stories of famous adults with LD. These small moves chip away at self-stigma and lift quality of life.
Want CEUs on This Topic?
The ABA Clubhouse has 60+ free CEUs — live every Wednesday. Ethics, supervision & clinical topics.
Join Free →Start each session by naming one thing the learner did well that took persistence, not just accuracy.
02At a glance
03Original abstract
BACKGROUND: Children with specific learning disabilities (SpLD) are likely to develop self-stigma and have a poor quality of life (QoL) because of their poor academic performance. Although both self-stigma and poor QoL issues are likely to be found in low academic achievers without SpLD, children with SpLD have worse situation because their diagnosis of SpLD suggests that their learning struggles are biological and permanent. Specifically, students' perception of own capabilities may be affected more by the diagnosis of SpLD than their own actual performance. AIMS: We examined the self-stigma and QoL of children with SpLD in Hong Kong, a region with an academics-focused culture. METHODS AND PROCEDURES: Children with SpLD (n=49,Mage±SD=9.55±1.21; SpLD group) and typically developing children (n=32,Mage±SD=9.81±1.40; TD group) completed a Kid-KINDL to measure QoL and a Modified Self-Stigma Scale to measure self-stigma. All parents completed a parallel Kid-KINDL to measure QoL of their children. OUTCOMES AND RESULTS: Compared with the TD group, the SpLD group had a higher level of self-stigma (p=0.027) and lower QoL (child-reported Kid-KINDL: p=0.001; parent-reported Kid-KINDL: p<0.001). CONCLUSIONS AND IMPLICATIONS: In the academics-focused environment in Hong Kong, SpLD was associated with impaired QoL and higher self-stigma. Treatments targeting the learning process of children with SpLD may be designed to overcome self-stigma and to improve QoL. In addition, the program may involve parents of the children with SpLD or other people (e.g., the peer of the children with SpLD) for improving their understanding and perceptions of SpLD.
Research in developmental disabilities, 2017 · doi:10.1016/j.ridd.2017.07.014