Abstract
Although the relationship between developmental dyslexia (DD) and the risk of occurrence of internalizing symptomatology has been widely investigated in the extant literature, different findings have been reported. In this study, two experiments with two general purposes are presented. The first study investigates whether the differences in the severity of internalizing symptoms between DD and controls are greater in students attending secondary school than in those attending primary school. Sixty-five DD and 169 controls attending primary and secondary school took part in the first study. The diagnosis of dyslexia was obtained from standardized reading tests; internalizing symptom severity was assessed with the Self Administrated Psychiatric Scales for Children and Adolescents questionnaire. The results showed that adolescents with dyslexia had an increased level of self-perceived anxiety, depression and somatic symptoms, whereas no significant differences between DD and controls emerged in childhood. In the second study, a cohort of adolescents attending secondary school (DD = 44; controls = 51) was closely analyzed to clarify whether contextual and subjective factors could contribute toward exacerbating the risk of internalizing symptomatology at that age. Internalizing symptom severity was assessed with the Child Behavior Checklist, Youth Self Report questionnaire, decision-making factors were measured with the Melbourne Decision Making Questionnaire, and student’s quality of life was gaged using the Clipper test. The results showed that high levels of internalizing symptoms in DD were associated with a low level of self-esteem and the tendency to react to problematic situations with hyperactivation. By contrast, positive relationships with peers were associated with low symptom severity. In conclusion, the intensified internalizing symptoms that could emerge in adolescents in association with the presence of dyslexia are predicted by social protective and risk factors that are associated with symptom severity. Accordingly, the results suggest that remediation programs for dyslexia should include implementing motivation strategies, self-esteem enhancement activities and building peers networks that, starting in childhood, can prevent the appearance of internalizing symptoms.
Highlights
Developmental dyslexia (DD) is defined as a specific difficulty in fluency and accuracy of the grapheme-phoneme transcoding process (Lyon et al, 2003), despite normal intelligence, appropriate education and adequate socio-economic status
Our results showed that peer relationships could be considered as a protective factor contributing to emotional wellbeing, despite learning disability
In light of the findings reported by Alexander-Passe (2006), who demonstrated the effect of the differences of male and female DD coping strategies, further studies are needed to investigate whether the results from the present study could be generalized to the female adolescent DD population
Summary
Developmental dyslexia (DD) is defined as a specific difficulty in fluency and accuracy of the grapheme-phoneme transcoding process (Lyon et al, 2003), despite normal intelligence, appropriate education and adequate socio-economic status. A growing number of studies have confirmed the role of DD as a risk factor for high levels of internalizing symptomatology in children and adolescents (Biederman et al, 1991; Cantwell and Baker, 1991; Faraone et al, 1993; Beitchman and Young, 1997; Bäcker and Neuhäuser, 2002; see Mugnaini et al, 2009 for a review). In a meta-analysis of studies concerning school-age subjects with learning disabilities, In details, the association between DD and anxiety disorders is not due to familial influences or environmental risks (Willcutt and Pennington, 2000). Nelson and Harwood (2011) found that approximately 70% of children with DD reported high levels of anxiety symptoms. The same meta-analysis pointed out that there was high heterogeneity in terms of magnitude and direction of the effects reported in the included studies
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