Parenting Stress and Broader Phenotype in Parents of Children with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder, Dyslexia or Typical Development.

Paola Bonifacci,Laura Massi,Simona Chiodo,Veronica Pignataro,Sara Zocco

doi:10.3390/ijerph16111878

Abstract

In the present study parenting stress and the broader phenotype are investigated in two highly common developmental disorders, namely Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) and specific reading impairment (dyslexia). Within a total sample of 130 parents, 27 were parents of children with ADHD (P-ADHD), 38 were parents of children with a diagnosis of dyslexia (P-DYS) and the other 65 participants were parents of children with typical development (P-TD). A battery of cognitive tasks was administered which included verbal and non-verbal Intellectual Quotient (IQ), reading speed (passage and nonwords), verbal fluency and the Attention Network Task (ANT). Reading history, symptoms of ADHD in adults and parenting stress were measured through questionnaires. Group differences evidenced that the P-DYS group had lower scores in the reading tasks, in the verbal fluency task and in the reading history questionnaire. Conversely, the P-ADHD group had more transversal cognitive weaknesses (IQ, reading tasks, verbal fluency) and the highest scores in parenting stress and ADHD symptoms, together with poor reading history. The groups did not differ in the ANT task. Parenting stress was predicted, on the whole sample, by lower socioeconomic status (SES) and number of family members and higher ADHD symptoms. Implications for research and clinical settings are discussed.

Highlights

In the past few decades a great amount of research led to an outstanding knowledge about the genetic, biological and neural basis of developmental trajectories in both typical and atypical populations
Robust evidence has shown that many neurodevelopmental disorders run in families and an increasing number of studies is addressing the issue of intergenerational transmission of risk and protective factors [3]
At the final step, when parents’ reading history and symptoms of adults’ Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) were added the model significantly increased in the portion of variance explained

Summary

Introduction

In the past few decades a great amount of research led to an outstanding knowledge about the genetic, biological and neural basis of developmental trajectories in both typical and atypical populations. After Morton and Frith’s causal model [1], many studies investigated the etiology of developmental disorders on multiple levels of analysis (biological, cognitive and behavioral). Public Health 2019, 16, 1878; doi:10.3390/ijerph16111878 www.mdpi.com/journal/ijerph Both parents were asked to fill out a short questionnaire that included socio-demographic information, such as SES (calculated based on the Four Factor Index of Social Status, Hollingshead, 1975), civil state, and evaluation of previous scholastic achievement. ([42]; Italian version adapted and standardized by [43]) This test assesses intellectual functioning and comprises Vocabulary (verbal knowledge and riddles) and Matrices subtests. It gives standardized measures of Verbal (VIQ), Performance (PIQ) and Composite Full Scale IQ. Participants were asked to read aloud a passage (729 words) and reading speed (syllables per second) and accuracy (number of errors) were recorded

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Discussion

Conclusion