The Role of Trait Anxiety and Preoccupation With Reading Disabilities of Children and Their Mothers in Predicting Children’s Reading Comprehension

Abstract

This study investigated the relationship between reading comprehension (RC), trait anxiety, and preoccupation with reading disability (RD) in 88 school children in Grades 3 through 5 and in their mothers. Children's trait anxiety had a significant direct negative relationship with RC and also mediated the association between preoccupation with RD and RC. Mothers' preoccupation with their children's RDs had a direct negative association with their children's RC. This association was also mediated through children's trait anxiety. No association was found between mothers' trait anxiety and children's RC. In a final model, RC was explained significantly by children's word reading fluency and trait anxiety as well as by their mothers' preoccupation with their children's RDs. This study extends our understanding of multicomponential models of RC by shedding light on the significant role played by anxiety- and preoccupation-related factors involving both children with RDs and their mothers.

The influence of student engagement on the effects of an inferential reading comprehension intervention for struggling middle school readers

“…A central symptom of anxiety is being preoccupied with personal thoughts or emotions both of which can lead to mind wandering (Smallwood et al, 2007;Unsworth & McMillan, 2013). Similar to mind-wandering, trait-based anxiety can interfere with inference-making and reading comprehension (Blicher et al, 2017;Gygax et al, 2007). In addition, higher levels of anxiety are associated with lower working memory capacity, which can interfere with attention to, processing of, and retention of the text (Albano et al, 2003).…”

Understanding Mental Health in Developmental Dyslexia: A Scoping Review

“…In other studies, mental health was not included as an outcome variable. Rather, the relative influence of learning difficulties and/or behaviour/mental health on children’s social skills [ 62 ] or academic outcomes was investigated (e.g., grades, reading comprehension, secondary school completion), see for example [ 43 , 57 , 63 , 64 ]. However, in our estimation, the aim of 39 (40%) of the included studies aligned to that of this review; that is, the researchers aimed to better understand mental health in the context of childhood learning/reading difficulties.…”

Arab-Israeli Mothers’ Attribution, Affective, and Behavioral Responses Toward Their Child With a Learning Disability: Examining an Attribution Model of Reactions to Stigma

“…Negative responses indicate that the disability is stigmatized (see Author). In adopting this definition, future studies should focus on determining maternal perceptions of public stigma toward LD, as well of the levels of courtesy stigma they experience (for a measure of a similar construct, namely, mothers’ preoccupation with children’s reading disabilities, see Blicher et al, 2017). Moreover, future research should also focus on the associations between these types of stigma and mothers’ reactions toward their children.…”

“…Since research showed that mothers’ behaviors and children with LD’s academic performance are connected (?) (e.g., see Blicher et al, 2017; Stone et al, 2002), this outcome should also be examined more extensively.…”