School’s social environment in relation to participation and well-being of young adolescents with self-rated neurodevelopmental problems

Abstract: Young adolescents with neurodevelopmental disabilities tend to have lower levels of participation and poorer well-being compare to their typically developing peers. School is a key setting for adolescents to participate. School’s social environment is found to be influential to both participation and well-being for young adolescents. This paper investigates the relations between school’s social environment and participation, well-being of young adolescents with self-rated neurodevelopmental problems (SNP) and whether participation is associated with well-being of this population. Data of this study was retrieved from wave three of the longitudinal research programme LoRDIA. Study participants were 175 adolescents aged 14-15 years old with SNP. Linear regression was conducted to test the hypothesis. Results show that bullying is the strongest (negative) predictor to both participation and well-being for young adolescents with SNP, which means students within this group who have been bullied are more likely to have low level participation and poor well-being. Relation to teachers is also a strong positive predictor to participation of this population. Class atmosphere is less predictive compare to the other two predictors but still have moderate positive correlation with both participation and well-being. Adolescents with neurodevelopmental disabilities or problems are a vulnerable group, school’s environment is essential to their development. Experience of bullying has a profound and long-term negative effect on children’s participation and well-being. Therefore, more longitudinal data will be needed to further understand this issue. Relation to teachers brings up that the focus and attention should not only been put on students but also on fulfilling teacher’s needs, so they could provide higher quality of teacher-student relationships.