The following master’s thesis is constructed as a systematic review with the purpose of gathering and synthesizing quantitative research evidence concerning psychosocial difficulties in children and adolescents aged 6-18 years with develop-mental dyslexia. These psychosocial difficulties are explained and understood against the background of Urie Bronfenbrenner’s ecological systems theory.
The databases PsycInfo, PubMed and Scopus have been systematically searched to identify studies investigating psychosocial difficulties in children and adolescents with developmental dyslexia. The electronic search has identified a total of 1264 studies with an additional 7 studies that have been identified in the preliminary pilot search. A total of 11 studies have been included in the review for narrative synthesis. The methodological quality of the included studies has been appraised through the application of Effective Public Health Practice Project (EPHPP) – a quality assessment tool for quantitative studies.
Evidence from the included studies indicates that children and adolescents with developmental dyslexia experience internalizing as well as externalizing symptoms and difficulties to a higher degree than their contemporaries without this learning disorder. The difficulties are characterized by symptoms of anxiety, de-pression and somatization, lowered self-esteem – globally and related to school – together with behavioural and attentional difficulties.
In the light of Bronfenbrenner’s theory, the master’s thesis concludes that developmental dyslexia may be seen as a risk factor for experiencing internalizing and externalizing difficulties. Furthermore, there are other elements in the child’s immediate and more distant environments that can serve as both protective factors as well as risk factors for the mental health and well-being of children and adoles-cents with developmental dyslexia. These findings have implications for the psy-chological field and practice in underlining the fact that this group may need help and guidance which reach beyond the academic support in class.
Future research is needed to investigate the ways in which this learning dif-ficulty can affect the mental health and well-being of children and adolescents. This knowledge is of utmost importance to the development and implementation of in-tervention programmes for children and adolescents affected by this developmental learning difficulty which reaches beyond their academic abilities.