Cognitive Failure and Alexithymia and Predicting High–Risk Behaviors of Students With Learning Disabilities

BACKGROUND: One of the threatening health issues is prevalence of high-risk behaviors in various groups. Because of rapid social changes, it has been considered as of the most important problems of society by health organizations, administrative laws, and social policymakers. OBJECTIVES: The aim of this study was to determine the role of cognitive failure and alexithymia in predicting high-risk behaviors of students with learning disabilities. PATIENTS AND METHODS: This was a correlational research including all 14-16 years old students during 2012-2013 school year in Arak, IR Iran. Eighty students with learning disabilities were sampled by simply random sampling. The data were collected by cognitive failures questionnaire, Toronto alexithymia scale, and high-risk behavior questionnaire. RESULTS: The results showed that high-risk behaviors had significant positive correlations with difficulty identifying feelings (r = 0.321), difficulty describing feelings (r = 0.336), externally oriented thinking (r = 0.248), distractibility (0.292), memory distortion (r = 0.374), blunders (r = 0.335), and names amnesia (r = 0.275). Multiple regression analysis showed that cognitive failure and alexithymia predicted 32% of the total variance of high-risk behaviors. CONCLUSIONS: These findings demonstrated that cognitive failure and alexithymia had important roles in strengthening and appearance of high-risk behaviors in students with learning disabilities. Therefore, considering those problems, precautionary actions might be necessary.