Impact of parental separation or divorce on school performance in preterm children: A population-based study

Abstract

The objective of this study was to quantify the possible decrease in school performance at five years of age in preterm children associated with parental separation or divorce, and to test whether this effect varies according to the child’s age at the time of the separation. This study included 3,308 infants delivered at < 35 weeks of gestation born between 2003 and 2011 who were enrolled in the population-based LIFT cohort and who had an optimal neurodevelopmental outcome at two years of age. These infants were evaluated by their teachers to assess their abilities and behavior when they had reached five years of age, using the Global School Adaptation (GSA) questionnaire. The mean GSA score was 50.8 points. Parental separations (assessed as parents either living together or living separately) were associated with a decrease in school performance at five years of age, although this was only the case for children who exhibited difficulties at school (3.7 points, p < 0.01). A decrease in school performance only occurred when parental separations took place between 3 and 5 years after the child’s birth. Parental separation was associated with a decrease in these children’s levels of motivation, autonomy, and manual dexterity. This study indicates that preterm infants of parents who had separated are particularly at risk of a lower scholar performance.

Increased Risk of Parental Instability for Children Born Very Preterm and Impacts on Neurodevelopmental Outcomes at Age 12

“…Child neurodevelopmental impairment at age 2 fully mediated associations between preterm birth and subsequent separation risk [24]. A further follow-up of 3300 of these children found that, independent of family socioeconomic status, preterm infants whose parents had separated by age 5 were more likely to be rated by their teachers on a global measure of school functioning as having more academic and behavioural difficulties in the classroom than those whose parents had not separated [25]. This analysis did not include a control group, so could not assess the extent to which rates of parental separation and school problems differed relative to typically developing term-born children.…”

Risk Factors and Pivotal Periods: Marital Status over 28 Years for Parents of Individuals with Autism

“…Demographic variables were compared across marital status (married or divorced) using t-tests for continuous variables and chi-square tests for categorical variables. The primary analyses were carried out using the Survival package in R, version 4.0.2 (R Core Team, 2020; Therneau & Grambsch, 2000). Kaplan-Meyer survival curves were fit to evaluate the overall risk of divorce in the sample.…”

“…The disruption to the family caused by divorce, or parental separation, can impact children’s development and academic progress. Across multiple samples, children whose parents separated saw increased school related difficulties; this is especially the case when some academic difficulties are already present (Babalis et al, 2014; Bernardi et al, 2014; Nusinovici et al, 2018). Though, the impact of divorce appears to be temporally associated with the separation and becomes less apparent as children age (Clare-Stewart et al, 2000).…”

Motivation to Study During COVID-19 as a Function of Parent Marital Status

“…It appears that not all students will do well in the e-learning process and the reasons for this derive from differences in learning, in environmental elements, and in the student's personal characteristics (Ramadhani and Ritonga, 2020). One of the environmental reasons found related to a decline in students' motivation, involvement, and autonomy is their parents' divorce (Nusinovici et al, 2018).…”