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Internalizing Symptoms and Reading Difficulties Among Early Elementary School Students

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Abstract

While the field of learning disabilities has grown substantially over the past several decades (Grigorenko et al. in Am Psychol 75:37, 2020) little work has explored the role of internalizing symptoms among struggling students. The present study compared struggling and typical readers on several child reported internalizing measures at both the beginning and end of a school year during which time they received either classroom-as-usual or research-team provided intensive intervention. Struggling readers who did and did not meet reading benchmarks were also compared at year-end. While minimal differences were present at the beginning of the year, numerous differences were observed at the end, with students exhibiting persistent reading struggles reporting significantly greater distress. Bi-directional associations emerged with beginning of year group status predicting internalizing symptoms and beginning of year internalizing symptoms predicting end of year intervention response group status. Findings are discussed in terms of future directions for enhancing intervention studies of struggling readers.

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Acknowledgements

This research was supported in part by Award Numbers K08HD058020 (PI, Grills) and P50HD052117 (PI, Fletcher) from the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health & Human Development. The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health & Human Development or the National Institutes of Health.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Wheelock College of Education & Human Development, Boston University, 2 Silber Way, Boston, MA, 02215, USA

    Amie E. Grills & Chelsey Bowman

  2. Department of Psychology, University of Houston, 3695 Cullen Boulevard, Room 126, Houston, TX, 77204-5022, USA

    Jack M. Fletcher

  3. College of Education, University of Texas at Austin, 1918 Speedway, Stop D5000, Austin, TX, 78712, USA

    Sharon R. Vaughn

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  1. Amie E. Grills
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Correspondence to Amie E. Grills.

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Grills, A.E., Fletcher, J.M., Vaughn, S.R. et al. Internalizing Symptoms and Reading Difficulties Among Early Elementary School Students. Child Psychiatry Hum Dev 54, 1064–1074 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10578-022-01315-w

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