Reading and Psychosocial Development in Finnish Children: Poor Reading Is Associated With Later Anxiety

Abstract

Poor reading has been linked to negative outcomes on a wide range of psychosocialdimensions in children. However, little is known about the time course of theseassociations. In this study we analyse data from the Finnish JyväskyläLongitudinal Study of Dyslexia (N=199; 106 boys) which included measures ofadaptability, aggression, anxiety, attention, atypicality, depression, hyperactivity,social skills, somatization and withdrawal at ages 4, 5, 6 (pre-school), 8, and 9.Reading fluency was assessed in Grade 1 (age 7 or 8). In a series of stepwiseregression models, we assessed whether pre-school psychosocial measures wereassociated with reading fluency, and whether reading fluency was associated withlater psychosocial development, after controlling for family-risk of dyslexia and thechildren’s non-verbal IQ. We also examined whether associations between readingand psychosocial development differed between boys and girls. Consistent withprevious longitudinal studies, we found that of the pre-school measures, onlysymptoms of attention difficulties were associated with poorer reading outcomes inGrade 1. Associations between reading fluency and pre-school measures ofatypicality and somatization (not significant as main effects) interacted withgender, but are difficult to interpret. Also consistent with other studies, we foundthat poor reading fluency in Grade 1 was associated with increased symptoms ofanxiety in children at ages 8 and 9. Gender did not moderate any associationsbetween reading fluency and later measures of psychosocial development.