The Effects of Glucose Levels on Academic Performance of Children and Adolescents with Type 1 Diabetes Mellitus

Abstract

This study examined how children and adolescents with type 1 diabetes mellitus' (T1DM) glucose levels during and prior to academic performance impact the outcome on a variety of reading, writing, and mathematics tasks. The study sample was selected from a larger study. Participants wore a continuous glucose monitor for approximately six days and complete a neurobehavioral evaluation that consisted of a variety of tasks including tasks that assessed basic reading skills, reading fluency, reading comprehension, math fact fluency, math calculation, math problem solving, spelling, and writing fluency. Results indicated that individuals who experience extreme glucose levels (e.g. hyperglycemia or hypoglycemia) perform worse on spelling accuracy tasks. Additionally, when an individual is hyperglycemic his or her reading and writing fluency skills decrease. Moreover, poor glucose control prior to academic performance increased individual's risk for exhibiting impaired performance on reading and mathematics tasks. Overall, the study results suggest that one's glucose levels prior to and during academic performance potentially impact overall execution of reading, writing, and mathematics abilities. Therefore, these findings support the need to move beyond consideration of only overall glucose levels and review temporal influence of glucose levels on academic performance to track fluctuations on academic performance and determine necessary accommodations to buffer glycemic dysregulation effects. In particular, individuals whose glucose levels are frequently within the hyperglycemic range are at greatest risk for performing below their optimal level.