Everyday stressors in the lives of Anglo and Hispanic learning handicapped adolescent

The sociocultural context of the lives of 10 learning handicapped adolescents was closely monitored over an entire school year using participant observation techniques. Everyday stressors and coping strategies of 5 Hispanic and 5 Anglo adolescents matched on age, sex, SES, class placement, and family intactness, were documented in lengthy field notes. Data revealed that in addition to concerns typical of all adolescents (i.e., family, work, recreation, appearance), cross pressure from cultural conflicts and the learning handicapped status were major sources of stress for these adolescent subgroups. It was concluded that we need to understand stressful events as a function of the context in which lives are situated in order to develop intervention programs designed to teach stress management and strategies for coping with relevant real-life problems.This research was supported in part by National Institute of Child Health and Human Development Grant No. HD23097.Received Ed.D. from Columbia University. Current interests include social competence and family relations of culturally diverse learning handicapped populations.