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Are comorbidities of poor reading related to elevated anxiety in children?
McArthur, Genevieve Doust, Amy Banales, Erin Robidoux, Serje Kohnen, Saskia Regina
McArthur, Genevieve
Doust, Amy
Banales, Erin
Robidoux, Serje
Kohnen, Saskia Regina
Abstract
Studies of the association between dyslexia and mental health have typically tried to minimise the influence of dyslexia comorbidities on the outcomes. However, in the “real world”, many children with dyslexia have these comorbidities. In this study, we tested (1) if children with dyslexia with three common comorbidities — inattention, hyperactivity, language difficulties — experience more anxiety than children with dyslexia without these comorbidities; and (2) if any type of comorbidity is related to a certain type of anxiety (reading, social, generalised, or separation). The data of 82 children with dyslexia (mean age = 9 years and 4 months; 25 girls) were analysed using Fisher exact tests, which revealed that those with inattention (40.54%) or hyperactivity (42.30%) were statistically significantly more likely to experience elevated anxiety than children with dyslexia without these comorbidities (8.11 and 14.28%, respectively). This was not the case for language difficulties (24.5% versus 30%). Spearman ρ correlations (α = .05) indicated significant moderate relationships between inattention and reading anxiety (.27), social anxiety (.37), and generalised anxiety (.24); and between hyperactivity and social anxiety (.24) and generalised anxiety (.28). There were no significant correlations between language and anxiety. Examination of highly inter-correlated variables suggested a specific relationship between one type of comorbidity (inattention) and one type of anxiety (reading anxiety).
Keywords
Anxiety, Hyperactivity, Inattention, Language difficulties, Poor reading
Date
2024
Type
Journal article
Journal
Annals of Dyslexia
Book
Volume
74
Issue
1
Page Range
47-65
Article Number
ACU Department
Faculty of Education and Arts
Collections
Relation URI
Event URL
Open Access Status
Published as ‘gold’ (paid) open access
License
All rights reserved
File Access
Controlled
Notes
© The Author(s), under exclusive licence to The International Dyslexia Association, 2023.