The Relationship Between Anxious/Depressed and Withdrawn Symptoms On Cognitive and Academic Measures In Elementary School Children

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to determine the relationship between anxious/depressed and withdrawn symptoms and performance on a variety of cognitive and academic achievement measures. The sample included 343 subjects, drawn from a pool of subjects aged 6 to 11 years who were part of a sleep apnea study. A comprehensive battery of selected tests that measured cognitive and academic achievement function was administered to all sampled subjects. Parents of the subjects were given an instrument to complete in order to assess behavior function.The obtained data were analyzed by using Pearson Product Moment Correlation Coefficient analyses, T test procedures, and chi-square analyses. A significant negative correlation was found between anxious/depressed and withdrawn symptoms and the following cognitive and academic measures: general intelligence including verbal and nonverbal abilities, language, specific executive function skills, attention and processing speed, psychomotor speed and coordination with the dominant hand trial, and a subtest assessing math problem solving skills.There were statistically significant differences found between those subjects who obtained approaching borderline and clinically significant anxious/depressed, withdrawn, and both anxious/depressed and withdrawn symptoms on the following cognitive and academic measures: general intelligence including verbal and nonverbal abilities, language, specific executive function skills, attention and processing speed, psychomotor speed and coordination with the dominant hand, the interference and/or delayed recall trial of a memory task, and basic reading, math problem solving, and early spelling/writing skills.There was a significant difference found with regard to parent education level for children identified with withdrawn symptoms as compared to children without these symptoms but there were no other differences with regard to age, gender, ethnicity, or parent education level for children identified with anxious/depressed or withdrawn symptoms as compared to children without these symptoms. Additionally, Caucasian children performed significantly better than Hispanic children on a variety of the cognitive and academic measures.Overall, these findings support the hypotheses that depressive symptomatology does impact performance on cognitive and academic measures. Additionally, methodological problems for exercising caution in the interpretation of obtained findings were discussed. The implications of these findings for psychological practitioners, educators, and physicians were described.