Julie A. Hadwin

Anxiety and depression in academic performance: An exploration of the mediating factors of worry and working memory

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.

Cognitive processing and trait anxiety in typically developing children: evidence for an interpretation bias.

In this study the authors examined whether increases in childrens levels of self-reported trait anxiety would be related to their interpretation of ambiguous stimuli. By using the Revised Childrens Manifest Anxiety Scale (C. R. Reynolds & B. O. Richmond, 1985), the authors obtained measurements of anxiety for 40 children ages 7 and 9 years. Interpretation of ambiguous stimuli was measured by using a pictorial homophone task, where homophones could be interpreted as either threatening or neutral. Results showed that childrens interpretations of homophones was significantly predicted by level of anxiety. Increases in levels of trait anxiety were positively associated with threatening interpretations of homophones.

Processing efficiency theory in children: Working memory as a mediator between trait anxiety and academic performance

Abstract Working memory skills are positively associated with academic performance. In contrast, high levels of trait anxiety are linked with educational underachievement. Based on Eysenck and Calvos (1992) processing efficiency theory (PET), the present study investigated whether associations between anxiety and educational achievement were mediated via poor working memory performance. Fifty children aged 11–12 years completed verbal (backwards digit span; tapping the phonological store/central executive) and spatial (Corsi blocks; tapping the visuospatial sketchpad/central executive) working memory tasks. Trait anxiety was measured using the State–Trait Anxiety Inventory for Children. Academic performance was assessed using school administered tests of reasoning (Cognitive Abilities Test) and attainment (Standard Assessment Tests). The results showed that the association between trait anxiety and academic performance was significantly mediated by verbal working memory for three of the six academic performance measures (math, quantitative and non-verbal reasoning). Spatial working memory did not significantly mediate the relationship between trait anxiety and academic performance. On average verbal working memory accounted for 51% of the association between trait anxiety and academic performance, while spatial working memory only accounted for 9%. The findings indicate that PET is a useful framework to assess the impact of childrens anxiety on educational achievement.

Face processing in high‐functioning adolescents with autism: evidence for weak central coherence

Seventeen adolescents with autism and seventeen typically developing children, matched for chronological age, were tested in a whole versus part paradigm in which participants matched a face target either to a complete face or to a face feature. Previous studies showed an accuracy advantage in whole‐face matching, indicating a holistic processing advantage for adults (Donnelly & Davidoff, 1999). It has been suggested that individuals with autism have difficulty in holistic processing, however the extent to which this difficulty may be moderated by attentional cues is uncertain. The present study included a condition that cued participants to the relevant face feature for matching. In the comparison group, the cue did not moderate the whole‐face matching advantage. In the participants with autism, cueing generated a whole‐face advantage, while uncued stimuli showed no difference between whole face and feature matching. This suggests that a lack of holistic processing in face processing, which is associated with individuals with autism, can be moderated with cueing. The implications for weak central coherence theory are discussed.

State anxiety and working memory in children: A test of processing efficiency theory

This study investigated the effect of individual differences in state anxiety on tasks tapping the central executive, phonological, and visuo‐spatial components of working memory (WM). It was designed to test Eysenck and Calvo’s processing efficiency theory (PET) which suggests that the phonological and executive components of WM may be important in understanding learning outcomes in anxiety. Typically‐developing children aged 9–10 years were split into high and low state anxiety groups. They performed three WM tasks – forward and backward digit span (assumed to measure phonological and central executive components of WM respectively) and a spatial working memory task (measuring the visuo‐spatial component of WM). Measurements of task accuracy were taken as an indicator of performance outcome or effectiveness. Time taken to complete tasks and a subjective rating of mental effort were taken as measurements of performance efficiency. No differences were found between high and low state anxiety groups in task accuracy for any measure. Children in the high state anxiety group, however, took longer to complete the backward digit span task and reported increased mental effort in the forward digit span task, indicating some effect of anxiety on measures of performance efficiency.

Psychometric properties of reaction time based experimental paradigms measuring anxiety-related information-processing biases in children

Theoretical frameworks highlight the importance of threat-related information-processing biases for understanding the emergence of anxiety in childhood. The psychometric properties of several tasks measuring these biases and their associations with anxiety were examined in an unselected sample of 9-year-old children (N=155). In each task, threat bias was assessed using bias scores reflecting task performance on threat versus non-threat conditions. Reliability was assessed using split-half and test-retest correlations of mean reaction times (RTs), accuracy and bias indices. Convergence between measures was also examined. Mean RTs showed substantial split-half and test-retest correlations. Bias score reliability coefficients were near zero and non-significant, suggesting poor reliability in children of this age. Additionally, associations between bias scores and anxiety were weak and inconsistent and performance between tasks showed little convergence. Bias scores from RT based paradigms in the current study lacked adequate psychometric properties for measuring individual differences in anxiety-related information-processing in children.

When does anxiety help or hinder cognitive test performance? The role of working memory capacity

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 (ΔR(2) .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.

Exploring the function of selective attention and hypervigilance for threat in anxiety

Theoretical frameworks of anxiety propose that attentional biases to threat-related stimuli cause or maintain anxious states. The current paper draws on theoretical frameworks and key empirical studies to outline the distinctive attentional processes highlighted as being important in understanding anxiety. We develop a conceptual framework to make a distinction between two attentional biases: selective attention to threat and hypervigilance for threat. We suggest that these biases each have a different purpose and can account for the typical patterns of facilitated and impaired attention evident in anxious individuals. The framework is novel in its specification of the eye movement behavior associated with these attentional biases. We highlight that selective attention involves narrowing overt attention onto threat to ensure that these stimuli receive processing priority, leading to rapid engagement with task-relevant threat and delayed disengagement from task-irrelevant threat. We show that hypervigilance operates in the presence and absence of threat and involves monitoring for potential dangers via attentional broadening or excessive scanning of the environment with numerous eye movements, leading to improved threat detection and increased distraction from task-irrelevant threat. We conclude that future research could usefully employ eye movement measures to more clearly understand the diverse roles of attention in anxiety.

Psychosocial adjustment in children and adolescents with a parent with multiple sclerosis: a systematic review

Objective: This systematic review explored the potential impact of parental multiple sclerosis on their offspring. It considered adjustment to parental multiple sclerosis at different developmental stages and the factors associated with good versus poor adjustment. Data sources: MEDLINE, EMBASE, PsycINFO, CINAHL and Web of Science were searched for studies on children with a parent with multiple sclerosis. Inclusion and exclusion criteria were formulated. Hand-searching journals and reference lists, contacting authors and multiple sclerosis societies for additional unpublished papers complemented the searches. Review methods: Twenty studies that satisfied the inclusion criteria were included. The research articles were ranked according to a quality assessment checklist and were categorized as good, medium or poor quality. Results: The review found good evidence to suggest that parental multiple sclerosis has a negative impact on children’s social and family relationships and their psychological well-being. The review also identified potential factors associated with poor adjustment. These factors included parental negative emotions, increased illness severity, family dysfunction, children’s lack of knowledge about the illness and lack of social support. Adolescent children also seemed to be more at risk for psychosocial problems than school-age children. Conclusions: There is good evidence that parental multiple sclerosis has a negative psychosocial impact on children, especially on adolescents.

Anxious and depressive symptoms and children’s judgements of their own and others’ interpretation of ambiguous social scenarios

This study investigated associations between anxious and depressive symptoms in 7- and 9-year-olds and their judgements of intention. It asked children to judge how a protagonist (other judgement) and they themselves (self-judgement) would interpret the intention of a second character, where this intention was ambiguously negative or benign. The results showed that levels of self-report depressive symptoms predicted an increase in the number of negative interpretations for self (but not for other) judgements. In comparison, increased levels of parent-report anxiety symptoms predicted an increase in number of negative interpretations for other (but not for self) judgements.