Predicting adult-age mental health with childhood reading and math disability: do resilience and coping styles matter?

Aro T., Özbek A. B., Torppa M.

Annals of Dyslexia, 2023 (SSCI) identifier identifier

  • Yayın Türü: Makale / Tam Makale
  • Basım Tarihi: 2023
  • Doi Numarası: 10.1007/s11881-023-00290-8
  • Dergi Adı: Annals of Dyslexia
  • Derginin Tarandığı İndeksler: Social Sciences Citation Index (SSCI), Scopus, Academic Search Premier, IBZ Online, Applied Science & Technology Source, CINAHL, EBSCO Education Source, Education Abstracts, Educational research abstracts (ERA), EMBASE, ERIC (Education Resources Information Center), Linguistics & Language Behavior Abstracts, Psycinfo
  • Anahtar Kelimeler: Coping styles, Math disability, Mental health, Reading disability, Resilience
  • Dokuz Eylül Üniversitesi Adresli: Evet

Özet

We studied the associations between childhood-identified learning disabilities and adult-age mental health and whether adult-age reading and math skills, coping styles, or resilience influenced the associations. The participants were 159 Finnish adults (60.4% males). Of them, 48 (30%) had a reading disability (RD), 22 (14%) had a math disability (MD), 21 (13%) had RD + MD identified in childhood, and 68 (43%) were population-based controls, matched based on gender, age, and place of residence. At ages 20–40 (M age = 29), they reported their mental health, coping styles, and resilience, and their reading and math skills were assessed. The hierarchical regression analyses, predicting mental health with RD, MD, and their interaction while controlling for gender and age, indicated that childhood MD predicted the occurrence of more mental health problems in adulthood, but this was not observed in the case of RD. The RDxMD positive interaction effect reflected better mental health in both the RD and the RD + MD groups than in the MD group. Controlling for adult-age reading and math skills had no effect on the association between MD and mental health outcomes while controlling for resilience and coping styles diminished the impact of MD. Strong resilience without the use of an emotion-oriented coping may thus alleviate the association between MD and mental health. As childhood MD can have long-term associations with mental health problems, these issues need to be addressed in school, at work, and in healthcare. Based on our findings, strengthening effective coping and resilience may be one avenue of support.