Identifying the correlates and trajectory of academic and clinical anxiety symptoms in children with reading disabilities

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Project Summary Children with reading disabilities (RD) have twice the risk of developing an anxiety disorder compared to typically-developing peers, and this comorbidity significantly impacts children’s quality of life and well-being. Work from our group and others suggests that anxiety symptoms are very common and impairing, and yet remain unassessed and untreated in the vast majority of children with RD. In this proposal, we aim to define the correlates and trajectory of reading and other clinical anxiety symptoms in children with RD through four aims focused on the differentiation of anxiety subtypes (Aim 1), the academic and cognitive correlates of anxiety symptoms (Aims 2 & 3), and the developmental trajectory of anxiety symptoms (Aim 4) in children with RD. Each of these aims is designed to identify mechanisms that have high translational potential for assessment and prevention/treatment targets. The aims will be accomplished using two samples, one clinic- referred and one community-based. The clinic-referred sample will consist of N~600 children, ages 6-17 (in collaboration with Project I) who will be recruited through the in-house developmental neuropsychology training clinics at DU and CU Boulder. The community-based sample consists of N=230 children ages 8-12 recruited in the past LDRC cycle and who we will follow longitudinally 5 years later when they are 13-17 years old. The Project II research team exemplifies an interdisciplinary collaborative approach that bridges the learning disabilities and child mental health fields and is responsive to the RFA request to “generate new scientific knowledge to inform understanding of specific learning disorders (SLDs) and comorbid conditions through synergistic, integrated, team-based transdisciplinary science.” Our focus on a clinically referred sample addresses the RFA to “embrace the complexities of studying SLDs in the real world inclusive of the context of multiple comorbid or co-occurring conditions” and we have leveraged several resources in this application that will make our clinical neuropsychological services and resulting research pipeline more financially accessible. We are uniquely positioned to accomplish these aims because of our long-standing clinical-research partnerships and our expertise in learning disabilities and youth anxiety. Overall, these aims reflect some of the earliest work characterizing the interplay of reading and anxiety and will contribute novel insights with high translational potential for assessment, prevention, and intervention for children with comorbid anxiety and RD. Project II is squarely focused on the larger Center aim of understanding the comorbidity of learning disabilities and mental health and will generate key findings that inform the genetic, imaging, neuropsychological, and intervention goals of the Center.