Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

Anxiety and Attentional Bias in Children with Specific Learning Disorders

  • Published:
Journal of Abnormal Child Psychology Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

Children with specific learning disorders (SLDs) face a unique set of socio-emotional challenges as a result of their academic difficulties. Although a higher prevalence of anxiety in children with SLD is often reported, there is currently no research on cognitive mechanisms underlying this anxiety. One way to elucidate these mechanisms is to investigate attentional bias to threatening stimuli using a dot-probe paradigm. Our study compared children ages 9–16 with SLD (n = 48) to typically-developing (TD) controls (n = 33) on their attentional biases to stimuli related to general threats, reading, and stereotypes of SLD. We found a significant threat bias away from reading-related stimuli in the SLD, but not TD group. This attentional bias was not observed with the general threat and stereotype stimuli. Further, children with SLD reported greater anxiety compared to TD children. These results suggest that children with SLD experience greater anxiety, which may partially stem from reading specifically. The finding of avoidance rather than vigilance to reading stimuli indicates the use of more top-down attentional control. This work has important implications for therapeutic approaches to anxiety in children with SLD and highlights the need for attention to socio-emotional difficulties in this population. Future research is needed to further investigate the cognitive aspects of socio-emotional difficulties in children with SLD, as well as how this may impact academic outcomes.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Fig. 1

Similar content being viewed by others

References

  • Al-Yagon, M. (2016). Perceived close relationships with parents, teachers, and peers: Predictors of social, emotional, and behavioral features in adolescents with LD or comorbid LD and ADHD. Journal of Learning Disabilities, 49(6), 597–615.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • American Psychiatric Association. (2013). Diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders (DSM-5®). American Psychiatric Pub.

  • Aue, T., Hoeppli, M.-E., Piguet, C., Sterpenich, V., & Vuilleumier, P. (2013). Visual avoidance in phobia: Particularities in neural activity, autonomic responding, and cognitive risk evaluations. Frontiers in Human Neuroscience, 7.

  • Bar-Haim, Y., Holoshitz, Y., Eldar, S., Frenkel, T. I., Muller, D., Charney, D. S., et al. (2010). Life-threatening danger and suppression of attention bias to threat. American Journal of Psychiatry, 167(6), 694–698.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Bar-Haim, Y., Lamy, D., Pergamin, L., Bakermans-Kranenburg, M. J., & Van Ijzendoorn, M. H. (2007). Threat-related attentional bias in anxious and nonanxious individuals: A meta-analytic study. American Psychological Association.

  • Bertó, C., Ferrín, M., Barberá, M., Livianos, L., Rojo, L., & García-Blanco, A. (2017). Abnormal emotional processing in maltreated children diagnosed of complex posttraumatic stress disorder. Child Abuse & Neglect, 73, 42–50.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Bradley, B. P., Mogg, K., White, J., Groom, C., & Bono, J. (1999). Attentional bias for emotional faces in generalized anxiety disorder. British Journal of Clinical Psychology, 38(3), 267–278.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Briggs-Gowan, M. J., Pollak, S. D., Grasso, D., Voss, J., Mian, N. D., Zobel, E., et al. (2015). Attention bias and anxiety in young children exposed to family violence. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 56(11), 1194–1201.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Brown, H. M., Eley, T. C., Broeren, S., MacLeod, C., Rinck, M., Hadwin, J. A., & Lester, K. J. (2014). Psychometric properties of reaction time based experimental paradigms measuring anxiety-related information-processing biases in children. Journal of Anxiety Disorders, 28(1), 97–107.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Carroll, J. M., Maughan, B., Goodman, R., & Meltzer, H. (2005). Literacy difficulties and psychiatric disorders: Evidence for comorbidity. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 46(5), 524–532.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Cisler, J. M., & Koster, E. H. (2010). Mechanisms of attentional biases towards threat in anxiety disorders: An integrative review. Clinical Psychology Review, 30(2), 203–216.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Cummings, J. G., Pepler, D. J., Mishna, F., & Craig, W. M. (2006). Bullying and victimization among students with exceptionalities. Exceptionality Education Canada, 16(2/3), 193.

    Google Scholar 

  • Dalgleish, T., Moradi, A. R., Taghavi, M. R., Neshat-Doost, H. T., & Yule, W. (2001). An experimental investigation of hypervigilance for threat in children and adolescents with post-traumatic stress disorder. Psychological Medicine, 31(3), 541–547.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Dandache, S., Wouters, J., & Ghesquière, P. (2014). Development of reading and phonological skills of children at family risk for dyslexia: A longitudinal analysis from kindergarten to sixth grade. Dyslexia, 20(4), 305–329.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Dodd, H. F., & Porter, M. A. (2010). I see happy people: Attention bias towards happy but not angry facial expressions in Williams syndrome. Cognitive Neuropsychiatry, 15(6), 549–567.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Dudeney, J., Sharpe, L., & Hunt, C. (2015). Attentional bias towards threatening stimuli in children with anxiety: A meta-analysis. Clinical Psychology Review, 40, 66–75.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Dudeney, J., Sharpe, L., Sicouri, G., Lorimer, S., Dear, B. F., Jaffe, A., et al. (2017). Attentional Bias in children with asthma with and without anxiety disorders. Journal of Abnormal Child Psychology, 1–12.

  • Dyson, L. (2010). Unanticipated effects of children with learning disabilities on their families. Learning Disability Quarterly, 33(1), 43–55.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Dyson, L. L. (2003). Children with learning disabilities within the family context: A comparison with siblings in global self–concept, academic self–perception, and social competence. Learning Disabilities Research & Practice, 18(1), 1–9.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Eldar, S., Apter, A., Lotan, D., Edgar, K. P., Naim, R., Fox, N. A., et al. (2012). Attention bias modification treatment for pediatric anxiety disorders: A randomized controlled trial. American Journal of Psychiatry, 169(2), 213–230.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Estell, D. B., Jones, M. H., Pearl, R., Van Acker, R., Farmer, T. W., & Rodkin, P. C. (2008). Peer groups, popularity, and social preference: Trajectories of social functioning among students with and without learning disabilities. Journal of Learning Disabilities, 41(1), 5–14.

  • Ferri, J., Schmidt, J., Hajcak, G., & Canli, T. (2013). Neural correlates of attentional deployment within unpleasant pictures. NeuroImage, 70, 268–277.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Hendren, R. L., Haft, S. L., Black, J. M., White, N. C., & Hoeft, F. (2018). Recognizing psychiatric comorbidity with reading disorders. Frontiers in Psychiatry, 9, 101.

    Article  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  • Higgins, E. L., Raskind, M. H., Goldberg, R. J., & Herman, K. L. (2002). Stages of acceptance of a learning disability: The impact of labeling. Learning Disability Quarterly, 25(1), 3–18.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Hollocks, M. J., Ozsivadjian, A., Matthews, C. E., Howlin, P., & Simonoff, E. (2013). The relationship between attentional bias and anxiety in children and adolescents with autism spectrum disorders. Autism Research, 6(4), 237–247.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Hunt, C., Keogh, E., & French, C. C. (2007). Anxiety sensitivity, conscious awareness and selective attentional biases in children. Behaviour Research and Therapy, 45(3), 497–509.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Joormann, J., Talbot, L., & Gotlib, I. H. (2007). Biased processing of emotional information in girls at risk for depression. Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 116(1), 135.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Kappenman, E. S., Farrens, J. L., Luck, S. J., & Proudfit, G. H. (2014). Behavioral and ERP measures of attentional bias to threat in the dot-probe task: Poor reliability and lack of correlation with anxiety. Frontiers in Psychology, 5.

  • Karande, S., Kumbhare, N., Kulkarni, M., & Shah, N. (2009). Anxiety levels in mothers of children with specific learning disability. Journal of Postgraduate Medicine, 55(3), 165.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Koster, E. H., Crombez, G., Verschuere, B., Van Damme, S., & Wiersema, J. R. (2006). Components of attentional bias to threat in high trait anxiety: Facilitated engagement, impaired disengagement, and attentional avoidance. Behaviour Research and Therapy, 44(12), 1757–1771.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Lowther, H., Newman, E., Sharp, K., & McMurray, A. (2016). Attentional bias to respiratory-and anxiety-related threat in children with asthma. Cognition and Emotion, 30(5), 953–967.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • MacLeod, C., Mathews, A., & Tata, P. (1986). Attentional bias in emotional disorders. Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 95(1), 15.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • May, T., Cornish, K., & Rinehart, N. J. (2015). Mechanisms of anxiety related attentional biases in children with autism spectrum disorder. Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders, 45(10), 3339–3350.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • McGrath, L. M., Oates, J. M., Dai, Y. G., Dodd, H. F., Waxler, J., Clements, C. C., et al. (2016). Attention bias to emotional faces varies by IQ and anxiety in Williams syndrome. Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders, 46(6), 2174–2185.

    Article  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  • Mishna, F. (2003). Learning disabilities and bullying: Double jeopardy. Journal of Learning Disabilities, 36(4), 336–347.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Mogg, K., Bradley, B., Miles, F., & Dixon, R. (2004). Brief report time course of attentional bias for threat scenes: Testing the vigilance-avoidance hypothesis. Cognition and Emotion, 18(5), 689–700.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Moll, K., Göbel, S. M., Gooch, D., Landerl, K., & Snowling, M. J. (2016). Cognitive risk factors for specific learning disorder: Processing speed, temporal processing, and working memory. Journal of Learning Disabilities, 49(3), 272–281.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Moore, D. J., Heavey, L., & Reidy, J. (2012). Attentional processing of faces in ASD: A dot-probe study. Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders, 42(10), 2038–2045.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Morrison, G. M., & Cosden, M. A. (1997). Risk, resilience, and adjustment of individuals with learning disabilities. Learning Disability Quarterly, 20(1), 43–60.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Murray, C., Goldstein, D. E., Nourse, S., & Edgar, E. (2000). The postsecondary school attendance and completion rates of high school graduates with learning disabilities. Learning Disabilities Research & Practice, 15(3), 119–127.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Nelson, J. M., & Harwood, H. (2011). Learning disabilities and anxiety: A meta-analysis. Journal of Learning Disabilities, 44(1), 3–17.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Neshat-Doost, H. T., Moradi, A. R., Taghavi, M. R., Yule, W., & Dalgleish, T. (2000). Lack of attentional bias for emotional information in clinically depressed children and adolescents on the dot probe task. The Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry and Allied Disciplines, 41(3), 363–368.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Pachankis, J. E. (2007). The psychological implications of concealing a stigma: A cognitive-affective-behavioral model. Psychological Bulletin, 133(2), 328.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Pacheco-Unguetti, A., Acosta, A., Lupiáñez, J., Román, N., & Derakshan, N. (2012). Response inhibition and attentional control in anxiety. Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, 65(4), 646–660.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Pérez-Edgar, K., Bar-Haim, Y., McDermott, J. M., Chronis-Tuscano, A., Pine, D. S., & Fox, N. A. (2010). Attention biases to threat and behavioral inhibition in early childhood shape adolescent social withdrawal. Emotion, 10(3), 349.

    Article  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  • Pérez-Edgar, K., Reeb-Sutherland, B. C., McDermott, J. M., White, L. K., Henderson, H. A., Degnan, K. A., et al. (2011). Attention biases to threat link behavioral inhibition to social withdrawal over time in very young children. Journal of Abnormal Child Psychology, 39(6), 885–895.

    Article  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  • Pergamin-Hight, L., Naim, R., Bakermans-Kranenburg, M. J., van IJzendoorn, M. H., & Bar-Haim, Y. (2015). Content specificity of attention bias to threat in anxiety disorders: A meta-analysis. Clinical Psychology Review, 35, 10–18.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Pine, D. S., Mogg, K., Bradley, B. P., Montgomery, L., Monk, C. S., McClure, E., et al. (2005). Attention bias to threat in maltreated children: Implications for vulnerability to stress-related psychopathology. American Journal of Psychiatry, 162(2), 291–296.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Price, M., Tone, E. B., & Anderson, P. L. (2011). Vigilant and avoidant attention biases as predictors of response to cognitive behavioral therapy for social phobia. Depression and Anxiety, 28(4), 349–353.

    Article  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  • Price, R. B., Kuckertz, J. M., Siegle, G. J., Ladouceur, C. D., Silk, J. S., Ryan, N. D., et al. (2015). Empirical recommendations for improving the stability of the dot-probe task in clinical research. Psychological Assessment, 27(2), 365.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Price, R. B., Siegle, G. J., Silk, J. S., Ladouceur, C. D., McFarland, A., Dahl, R. E., & Ryan, N. D. (2014). Looking under the hood of the dot-probe task: An fMRI study in anxious youth. Depression and Anxiety, 31(3), 178–187.

    Article  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  • Price, R. B., Siegle, G. J., Silk, J. S., Ladouceur, C., McFarland, A., Dahl, R. E., & Ryan, N. D. (2013). Sustained neural alterations in anxious youth performing an attentional bias task: A pupilometry study. Depression and Anxiety, 30(1), 22–30.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • R Core Team. (2013). R: A language and environment for statistical computing. R Foundation for Statistical Computing, Vienna. URL http://www.R-project.org/. Accessed 10/31/2017.

  • Rello, L., & Baeza-Yates, R. (2013). Good fonts for dyslexia. In Proceedings of the 15th International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility (p. 14). ACM.

  • Reynolds, C. R., & Kamphaus, R. W. (2004). Behavior assessment for children,(BASC-2). Circle Pines, MN: American Guidance Service.

    Google Scholar 

  • Riddick, B. (2001). Dyslexia and inclusion: Time for a social model of disability perspective? International Studies in Sociology of Education, 11(3), 223–236.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Salum, G. A., Mogg, K., Bradley, B. P., Gadelha, A., Pan, P., Tamanaha, A. C., et al. (2013). Threat bias in attention orienting: Evidence of specificity in a large community-based study. Psychological Medicine, 43(4), 733–745.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Schmukle, S. C. (2005). Unreliability of the dot probe task. European Journal of Personality, 19(7), 595–605.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Schrank, F. A., Mather, N., & McGrew, K. S. (2014). Woodcock-Johnson IV tests of achievement. Rolling Meadows, IL: Riverside.

    Google Scholar 

  • Shalev, R. S., Manor, O., & Gross-Tsur, V. (2005). Developmental dyscalculia: A prospective six-year follow-up. Developmental Medicine and Child Neurology, 47(2), 121–125.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Shifrer, D. (2013). Stigma of a label: Educational expectations for high school students labeled with learning disabilities. Journal of Health and Social Behavior, 54(4), 462–480.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Spencer, S. J., Logel, C., & Davies, P. G. (2016). Stereotype threat. Annual Review of Psychology, 67, 415–437.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Sylvester, C. M., Hudziak, J. J., Gaffrey, M. S., Barch, D. M., & Luby, J. L. (2016). Stimulus-driven attention, threat bias, and sad bias in youth with a history of an anxiety disorder or depression. Journal of Abnormal Child Psychology, 44(2), 219–231.

    Article  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  • Taghavi, M. R., Neshat-Doost, H. T., Moradi, A. R., Yule, W., & Dalgleish, T. (1999). Biases in visual attention in children and adolescents with clinical anxiety and mixed anxiety-depression. Journal of Abnormal Child Psychology, 27(3), 215–223.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Thai, N., Taber-Thomas, B. C., & Pérez-Edgar, K. E. (2016). Neural correlates of attention biases, behavioral inhibition, and social anxiety in children: An ERP study. Developmental Cognitive Neuroscience, 19, 200–210.

    Article  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  • Torgesen, J. K., Wagner, R. K., & Rashotte, C. A. (2012). TOWRE-2: Test of word recognition efficiency. Austin, TX: Pro-Ed.

    Google Scholar 

  • Vasey, M. W., Daleiden, E. L., Williams, L. L., & Brown, L. M. (1995). Biased attention in childhood anxiety disorders: A preliminary study. Journal of Abnormal Child Psychology, 23(2), 267–279.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Warriner, A., Kuperman, V., & Brysbaert, M. (2013). Norms of valence, arousal, and dominance for 13,915 English lemmas. Behavioral Research Methods, 45(4), 1191–1207. https://doi.org/10.3758/s13428-012-0314-x.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Waters, A. M., Bradley, B. P., & Mogg, K. (2014). Biased attention to threat in paediatric anxiety disorders (generalized anxiety disorder, social phobia, specific phobia, separation anxiety disorder) as a function of ‘distress’ versus ‘fear’diagnostic categorization. Psychological Medicine, 44(3), 607–616.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Waters, A. M., Henry, J., Mogg, K., Bradley, B. P., & Pine, D. S. (2010). Attentional bias towards angry faces in childhood anxiety disorders. Journal of Behavior Therapy and Experimental Psychiatry, 41(2), 158–164.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Waters, A. M., Mogg, K., & Bradley, B. P. (2012). Direction of threat attention bias predicts treatment outcome in anxious children receiving cognitive-behavioural therapy. Behaviour Research and Therapy, 50(6), 428–434.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Willcutt, E. G., Petrill, S. A., Wu, S., Boada, R., DeFries, J. C., Olson, R. K., & Pennington, B. F. (2013). Comorbidity between reading disability and math disability: Concurrent psychopathology, functional impairment, and neuropsychological functioning. Journal of Learning Disabilities, 46(6), 500–516.

    Article  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  • Wilson, A. M., Deri Armstrong, C., Furrie, A., & Walcot, E. (2009). The mental health of Canadians with self-reported learning disabilities. Journal of Learning Disabilities, 42(1), 24–40.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Xia, Z., Hancock, R., & Hoeft, F. (2017). Neurobiological bases of reading disorder part I: Etiological investigations. Language and Linguistics Compass, 11(4).

  • Zhao, X., Zhang, P., Fu, L., & Maes, J. H. (2016). Attentional biases to faces expressing disgust in children with autism spectrum disorders: An exploratory study. Scientific Reports, 6.

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Psychiatry and Weill Institute for Neurosciences, University of California San Francisco, 401 Parnassus Ave, San Francisco, CA, 94143, USA

    Stephanie L. Haft, Priscilla H. Duong, Robert L. Hendren & Fumiko Hoeft

  2. Palo Alto University, 1791 Arastradero Rd, Palo Alto, CA, 94304, USA

    Priscilla H. Duong

  3. Department of Psychology, Stanford University, Stanford, CA, 94305, USA

    Tiffany C. Ho

  4. Department of Psychiatry & Behavioral Sciences, Stanford University, Stanford, CA, 94304, USA

    Tiffany C. Ho

  5. Dyslexia Center, University of California San Francisco, 675 Nelson Rising Lane, San Francisco, CA, 94158, USA

    Robert L. Hendren & Fumiko Hoeft

  6. Multi-University Precision Learning Center, 401 Parnassus Ave, San Francisco, CA, 94143, USA

    Fumiko Hoeft

  7. Haskins Laboratories, 300 George St #900, New Haven, CT, 06511, USA

    Fumiko Hoeft

  8. Department of Neuropsychiatry, Keio University School of Medicine, 35 Shinanomachi, Shinjuku Tokyo, 160-8582, Japan

    Fumiko Hoeft

  9. Brain Research Imaging Center & Department of Psychological Sciences, University of Connecticut, Storrs, CT, 06269, USA

    Fumiko Hoeft

Authors
  1. Stephanie L. Haft
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Priscilla H. Duong
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  3. Tiffany C. Ho
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  4. Robert L. Hendren
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  5. Fumiko Hoeft
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Fumiko Hoeft.

Ethics declarations

All participants provided informed consent under an approved IRB study protocol (UCSF IRB #16-20551).

Conflict of Interest

The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.

Informed Consent

All participants provided informed consent under an approved IRB study protocol (UCSF IRB #16-20551).

Electronic supplementary material

ESM 1

(DOCX 62 kb)

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Haft, S.L., Duong, P.H., Ho, T.C. et al. Anxiety and Attentional Bias in Children with Specific Learning Disorders. J Abnorm Child Psychol 47, 487–497 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10802-018-0458-y

Download citation

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10802-018-0458-y

Keywords

Search

Navigation