Abundant research has shown that the academic setting provides an important positive reinforcement for the development of high self-perceptions, in other words, for how children view or perceive themselves (e.g., Pajares & Schunk, 2001). The perceptions children develop about their academic capacities play a large role in how children perceive themselves more generally and have been argued to also largely shape the way they perceive the world at large and engage in new experiences (Usher & Pajares, 2008). The consequences in terms of self-perceptions for children whose reading and learning experiences are altered and who are thereby faced with difficulties on an academic level, such as children with dyslexia, can thus be significant and warrant investigation. Developmental dyslexia can be defined as a neurodevelopmental disorder that affects children's ability to produce accurate and fluent word reading and spelling and that is characterized by problems in phonological awareness, verbal memory, and verbal processing speed (Rose, 2009). The importance of the ability to read as a required skill throughout and beyond the academic domain and its use as a traditional criterion of initial school achievement (Chapman & Tunmer, 2003) highlights the far-reaching consequences reading difficulties could entail for how children with dyslexia perceive themselves. As indicated by Burden's (2008) review on dyslexia in relation to several aspects of self-perception including self-efficacy, self-concept, and selfesteem, most of the self-perception research to date, however, has focused on children or adolescents with learning disabilities (LD). The term LD encompasses a set of various conditions (e.g., mathematics, reading, writing disabilities) identified within the education system but not necessarily based on a clinical diagnosis, thus making the comparative replicability of research findings across studies somewhat challenging (Burden, 2008). Most studies have, in fact, ignored the different developmental profiles within 762124L DQXXX10.1177/0731948718762124Learning Disability QuarterlyBattistutta et al.

Virtual reality (VR) is a powerful method of redirecting attention away from pain. Yet, little is known about which factors modulate the size of this distraction effect. The aim of this study was to investigate the role of cognitive load and inter-individual differences in the cognitive and affective domain on heat pain thresholds during a VR game. Ninety healthy participants (mean age ± SD: 23.46 ± 3.28; 50% identified as male and 50% as female) played a low and high load version of a VR game while heat pain thresholds and heart rate were recorded. The effects of cognitive load were assessed by computing the difference in pain thresholds between the high and low load condition for each participant. In addition, we computed the difference in heart rate variability (HRV) measures between both conditions to explore whether these would be correlated with the difference in heat pain thresholds. Prior to the VR session, participants completed questionnaires about their emotional distress, pain-related cognitions, and different executive functioning tasks. Contrary to our expectations, not all participants benefitted from a higher load in terms of distraction from pain. Logistic regression analysis revealed that participants who reported more emotional distress were more likely to exhibit higher pain thresholds in the low relative to the high load condition. Accordingly, these participants tended to show marginally higher HRV in the low compared to the high load condition. Our study demonstrates that the potential benefits of an increased cognitive load in VR on pain sensitivity depends on individual differences in affective state.

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