Psychoeducational Challenges in Spanish Children With Dyslexia and Their Parents’ Stress During the COVID-19 Pandemic

Abstract

BackgroundResearch during 2020 has been rapidly attending to the impact of COVID-19 on various dimensions of wellbeing (e.g., physical, psychological, lifestyle and routines) on adults and children around the world. However, less attention has focused on the psychoeducational impact on children and their families. To our knowledge, no currently available studies have looked specifically at the impact of COVID-19 on students with dyslexia and their families. Research on this topic is needed to offer greater support for this population of students and their families.ObjectiveThe main objective of this paper is to examine the psychoeducational impact of the required COVID-19 quarantine in Spain among children with dyslexia and their families.MethodA sample of 32 children with dyslexia and their mothers participated in this study.MeasuresChildren and adolescents with dyslexia and their mother completed several measures before the required national quarantine in Spain and again during the quarantine. Children completed measures of depression, state anxiety, reading activity, and reading motivation. Mothers provided demographic information and completed measures related to students’ emotional and behavioral difficulties as well as parenting stress, parental distress, and a questionnaire about educational problems during quarantine.ResultsMajor findings showed that during quarantine, children with dyslexia had increased levels of depression and anxiety symptoms, and parents perceived their children as having more emotional symptoms, hyperactivity-inattention, and conduct problems. During quarantine, children and adolescents with dyslexia also showed less reading activity and less reading motivation. Parents also reported significantly more stress, during quarantine compared to pre-quarantine conditions. Some demographic and psychological variables predicted children’s state anxiety as well parental stress. The questionnaire related to impacts of quarantine also revealed several important findings. For example, nearly all parents of children with dyslexia reported (a) difficulties in establishing study routines, (b) that the quarantine negatively affected their child’s learning, and (c) that they did not receive sufficient help from teachers on how to support their child’s learning. Additionally, the vast majority of the parents were very worried about the child’s learning and school success, the child’s motivation and interest in reading, the child’s peer relations, and the professional skills of the child’s teacher.ConclusionThis study offers a preliminary investigation into this topic and elucidates several psychoeducational challenges that children with dyslexia and their families have experienced during the quarantine in Spain. Study findings highlight the need to provide immediate support for children with dyslexia and emphasizes the importance of developing prevention programs to mitigate any future negative impacts of COVID-19 on children with dyslexia and their parents.

The impact of school strategies and the home environment on home learning experiences during the COVID-19 pandemic in children with and without developmental disorders

“…Our findings confirm and expand other studies conducted in the COVID-19 context, also showing extra difficulties for DD children during the school-closures (Baschenis et al, 2021;Soriano-Ferrer et al, 2021;Zawadka et al, 2021). In order to improve our understanding of why these children experienced extra difficulties, it is important to discuss the predictors of these learning experiences.…”

“…to his/her observations of what the different children in their class are struggling with (just as in the regular classroom practice). The expectation that the teaching methods will have been less effective for DD children is reinforced by the already reported extra difficulties children with DD have with learning, both in regular school times (Nonweiler et al, 2020) as during the school-closures (Baschenis et al, 2021;Soriano-Ferrer et al, 2021;Zawadka et al, 2021).…”

“…Academic problems are easily observed in children with learning disabilities (MLD or RLD), since the difficulties with learning are explicitly part of the criteria and characteristics of the disorder (American Psychiatric Association, 2013). During the COVID-19 lockdown, children with RLD (compared to TD children) demonstrated more conduct problems (Soriano-Ferrer et al, 2021), more emotional problems (anxiety and feelings of depression; Forteza-Forteza et al, 2021) and more problems with hyperactivity and inattention (Soriano-Ferrer et al, 2021). In addition, these children reported more difficulties with following online classes than their TD peers (Baschenis et al, 2021;Zawadka et al, 2021).…”

“…Parental involvement in the schooling of the children for example was shown to be more difficult for parents with learning disabilities (Maguire et al, 2009;Tarleton et al, 2005), ASD (Morris, 2003) and ADHD (Sonuga-Barke et al, 2002). Survey studies in parents indicated more worries and mood-changes for parents (Asbury et al, 2021), more emotional problems for children (Nonweiler et al, 2020) and increased levels of parental stress (Bentenuto et al, 2021;Chan & Fung, 2021;Soriano-Ferrer et al, 2021) during the COVID pandemic, both for parents of children with and without DD compared to regular times, with higher baseline and follow-up levels of parental stress in the DD group. The increase of parental stress during lockdown for children with DD was associated with the decrease in therapy (Bentenuto et al, 2021).…”

Children’s Psychological Reactions to the COVID-19 Pandemic

“…Parents reported that their children experienced loss (of, e.g., routine, support structures and network, participation of specialists), worry (e.g., for self, for others, in general), mood and behavior problems, difficulty understanding the pandemic, and challenges associated with remote learning [37]. Another study found that relative to pre-COVID-19 measures, a small sample of Spanish children with dyslexia experienced significantly greater emotional symptoms, conduct problems, and hyperactivity/inattention during quarantine, and a higher percentage of the children evidenced clinically significant problems across all three domains during quarantine [38].…”