Frustration and reading problems

Abstract

The presence of frustration-produced anxiety in varying degrees as a concomitant effect of reading disability has been amply documented. Bryant (1962) has noted anxiety as one of the underlying causes of the "almost universal" presence of emotional difficulties in reading disorders. Anxiety manifests itself in myriad ways, some subtle (as in the child who develops avoidance behaviors, or persists in letter and word confusions and reversals), and some more obvious (as in children who have temper tantrums, become overtly aggressive, or soil themselves during reading instruc tion). And yet in the face of this general agreement there have been few attempts to relate the two, frustration and reading problems, in any but an indirect, contributory manner. Hilgard's (1967, p. 514) statement is typical of the prevailing view, "The persistence of difficulties in arithmetic, reading, and spelling among bright children (and some adults) may be explained in part as a consequence of errors similarly stereotyped by early frustration." It has become apparent to me that it is possible, perhaps even probable, that the relationship between frustration and reading problems is less indirect than it has been perceived to be. The discussion which follows will indicate the marked similarity in behaviors between animal and human subjects who have been frustrated, and children and adults who have been labeled as cases of reading disability. Observation of these similarities indicates the possibility of a more direct link between the two and may serve to explain why therapy, as Eisenberg (1962, p. 6) has noted, "is most often a painfully slow process with small gains despite large efforts, and at times there is unfortunately no visible gain at all." It is hoped that further investigations will be encouraged by demonstra tion of the striking likenesses in behaviors manifested by both animals and humans placed in persistent, no-escape, frustration situations, and in children with apparently intractable reading problems, who may well view continuing but unsuccessful efforts at instruction as persistent, no-escape frustration situa tions.