Child Anxiety and Response to Intervention for Learning Disabilities

描述（由申请人提供）：我的研究重点是儿童焦虑的病因、评估和治疗，以及为青少年疾病治疗提供信息的风险和保护因素。我的短期目标包括扩大我在学习障碍的概念化、评估和干预方面的专业知识；发展更跨学科的研究方法；同时也增加了我在进行严谨的结果研究方面的知识，尤其是基于学校的设计。我的职业发展计划利用了一个独特的机会，从具有各种研究熟练程度的专家那里获得指导，旨在提高我在四个融合领域的能力：理解不同儿童群体的学习障碍和焦虑；进行临床结果研究；提高统计技能；提高拨款技巧。这些培训目标将为我提供必要的能力，以成功完成拟议的研究计划和我的长期目标，成为一个富有成效的，独立的临床儿童科学家/研究员。该研究计划将与一个更大的计划交织在一起，该计划将把对阅读教学反应不足的学生置于学校早期日益激烈的干预中。本研究的主要目的是探讨社会情绪因素对阅读困难的并发和长期影响，以及对这种多层次干预的反应。对有阅读问题风险儿童的焦虑进行评估，以确定焦虑是否能预测阅读困难（目标1）和对干预的反应（目标3）；焦虑症状是否与干预不同阶段的结果相关（目标2）；以及中介变量和调节变量的影响（目标4）。参与者将包括658名不同种族的一年级学生以及他们的父母和老师。在五个评估点上，所有参与者将完成社会情感测量，以及为更大的研究完成的认知测量。评估将在学生一年级的开始、中期和结束，以及二年级和三年级的结束时进行。数据分析策略主要包括多层次建模和增长曲线分析。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): My research focuses on the etiology, assessment, and treatment of child anxiety, as well as on risk and protective factors that inform treatments for youth disorders. My short-term goals involve widening my expertise of conceptualizations, assessments, and interventions for learning disabilities; developing a more interdisciplinary approach to research; and increasing my knowledge of conducting rigorous outcome research, particularly with school-based designs. My career development plan capitalizes on a unique opportunity to receive mentoring from experts with a variety of research proficiencies, and is designed to enhance my competencies in four converging areas: understanding of learning disabilities and anxiety in diverse child populations; conducting clinical outcomes research; advancing statistical skills; and improving grantsmanship skills. These training goals will provide me with the competencies necessary to successfully complete both the proposed research plan and my long-term goal of becoming a productive, independent clinical child scientist/researcher. The research plan will be intertwined with a larger that places students with inadequate response to reading instruction in increasingly intense interventions early in schooling. The primary objective of this proposed study is to examine the concurrent and long-term influences of socio emotional factors on reading difficulties and response to this multi-tiered intervention. Anxiety in children at-risk for reading problems will be evaluated to determine whether anxiety predicts reading difficulties (Aim 1) and response to intervention (Aim 3); whether anxiety symptoms are related to outcomes at different phases of the intervention (Aim 2); and the impact of mediator and moderator variables (Aim 4). Participants will include 658 ethnically diverse, 1st grade students as well as their parents and teachers. At five assessment points, all participants will complete socio emotional measures, in addition to cognitive measures completed for the larger study. Assessments will occur at the beginning, middle, and end of students' 1st grade year, as well as at the end of their 2nd and 3rd grade years. Data analytic strategies will principally consist of multi-level modeling and growth curve analysis. RELEVANCE: Major contributions of this application are the addition of socio emotional variables, measured across multiple informants, which allows for examination of these variables in relation to child reading difficulties/response to intervention. This research is relevant to public health because anxiety is a common problem that frequently occurs in children who struggle to learn to read. The research will help clarify how anxiety and reading influence one another when children are involved in increasingly intense educational interventions.