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Anxiety and depression are linked to lower academic performance. It is proposed that academic performance is reduced in young people with high levels of anxiety or depression as a function of increased test-specific worry that impinges on working memory central executive processes. Participants were typically developing children (12 to 13-years-old) from two UK schools. The study investigated the relationship between negative affect, worry, working memory, and academic performance using self-report questionnaires, school administered academic test data, and a battery of computerized working memory tasks. Higher levels of anxiety and depression were associated with lower academic performance. There was support for a mediation hypothesis, where worry and central executive processes mediated the link between negative affect and academic performance. Further studies should test these hypotheses in larger longitudinal samples. Implications for school psychology practice and interventions in schools are discussed. (Contains 2 tables and 3 figures.)

Children born very prematurely are at risk of low average IQ and behaviour difficulties throughout childhood and adolescence. Associations among preterm birth, IQ and behaviour have been reported; however, the nature of the relationship among these outcomes is not fully understood. Some studies have proposed that the consequences of preterm birth, such as low average IQ, mediate the association between preterm birth and later behaviour difficulties. The aim of this study was to investigate the relationship among preterm birth, IQ and childhood behaviour problems, by testing mediation and moderation models. We assessed a UK sample of 69 very preterm (less than 32 weeks gestational age) and 70 term born children aged between 6 and 12 years on an abbreviated IQ test. Parental behaviour ratings were obtained using the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire. Mediation and moderation models were tested using hierarchical regression analyses. The findings indicate that IQ mediates the relationship between birth status and emotional behaviour problems. Furthermore, the results indicate that birth status moderates the relationship between IQ and behavioural difficulties, i.e., that the relationship between low IQ and behaviour problems is most pronounced for the preterm children. The findings highlight the importance of considering indirect effects in the study of outcome after very preterm birth.

Cognitive interference theories (e.g. attentional control theory, processing efficiency theory) suggest that high levels of trait anxiety predict adverse effects on the performance of cognitive tasks, particularly those that make high demands on cognitive resources. We tested an interaction hypothesis to determine whether a combination of high anxiety and low working memory capacity ( WMC) would predict variance in demanding cognitive test scores. Ninety six adolescents (12- to 14-years-old) participated in the study, which measured self-report levels of trait anxiety, working memory, and cognitive test performance. As hypothesized, we found that the anxiety- WMC interaction explained a significant amount of variance in cognitive test performance (Δ R2 .07, p < .01). Trait anxiety was unrelated to cognitive test performance for those adolescents with average WMC scores (β = .13, p > .10). In contrast, trait anxiety was negatively related to test performance in adolescents with low WMC (β = −.35, p < .05) and positively related to test performance in those with high WMC (β = .49, p < .01). The results of this study suggest that WMC moderates the relationship between anxiety and cognitive test performance and may be a determinant factor in explaining some discrepancies found in the literature. Further research is needed to fully understand the mechanisms involved. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The authors present the results of a 2-year longitudinal study of 90 British children beginning at school entry when they were 4 years 9 months old (range = 4 years 2 months to 5 years 2 months). The relationships among early phonological skills, letter knowledge, grammatical skills, and vocabulary knowledge were investigated as predictors of word recognition and reading comprehension. Word recognition skills were consistently predicted by earlier measures of letter knowledge and phoneme sensitivity (but not by vocabulary knowledge, rhyme skills, or grammatical skills). ln contrast, reading comprehension was predicted by prior word recognition skills, vocabulary knowledge, and grammatical skills. The results are related to current theories about the role of phonological, grammatical, and vocabulary skills in the development of early reading skills. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objectives: To collect mothers' reports of the range of behaviours used by them in the management of their children's difficult behaviour., Design: A cross-sectional study using an interview with both semi-structured and open-ended question routes. SAMPLING FRAME: The population of mothers with 10-year-old children living in the New Forest region of Hampshire, UK., Methods: Mothers (n=67), selected from the sampling frame, were interviewed about the range of parenting behaviours they used in the management of their children's difficult behaviour., Results: Mothers reported a wide range of behaviours. Both authoritative (e.g. reasoning was mentioned by 42%) and authoritarian (e.g. the use of physical punishment was mentioned by 37%) behaviours were mentioned frequently. Although the different behaviours within these domains were intercorrelated, there was little overlap between the two domains. The use of praise for good behaviour seemed to be independent of other behaviours. There was no association between mothers' parenting behaviours and the behaviour problems of their children., Conclusions: These data suggest that parenting takes many forms, with variations of behaviour across the 'normal' range being unlikely to represent a significant risk to children's development. Public funding for parenting education should be targeted at those children who are at significant risk from extreme forms of parenting.