Arab Educational Information Network

The present study aims at identifying the cognitive thinking skills among blind students and those with learning disabilities in light of the variables of students' grades and types of disability. A total number of (120) students participated in the study: forty nine of them are with visual disability, enrolled in the institutes and programs of visual disability (King Saud Compound, Al-Noor Institute for the Blind, Hisham bin Hakim Primary School) in Riyadh, and the remaining (71) students are with learning disabilities enrolled in the learning disabilities program at Al Muthana bin Haritha school, King Saud Primary Compound, and King Abdul Aziz City for Science and Technology School in Riyadh during the academic year 1435-1436 AH. Data collection was carried out by means of cognitive thinking skills scale that has been administered to the sample of the study by teachers at the institutes and programs of visual disability and learning disabilities. In order to analyze the data, the study utilized the mean, standard deviation, and "T" test to verify the significance of the differences between the means. The findings indicate that the average scores of the blind students in the cognitive thinking skills scale were higher than those with learning disabilities in all grades, and that 4th graders (both blind and those with learning disabilities) hold high levels of cognitive thinking skills. Moreover, the study revealed that there are statistically significant differences at the (0.01) level of significance between the average scores of blind students and those with learning disabilities in the cognitive thinking skills scale that are attributed to the variable of school grade in favor of the 4th-6th grades, in addition to statistically significant differences at the (0.01) level of significance between the average scores of blind students and those with learning disabilities in the cognitive thinking skills scale that are attributed to the variable of type of disability in favor of the blind students. (Published abstract)