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Exposure to Family Violence and Reading Level of Early Adolescents

RICHARD THOMPSON Juvenile Protective Association, Chicago, Illinois, USA

LAKECIA A. WHIMPER Loyola University Chicago, Chicago, Illinois, USA

There is a limited amount of research on the effects of child maltreatment and exposure to violence on academic outcomes in general and reading ability in particular. In this study, 158 12-year-old children were recruited from low-income, urban fam- ilies. They reported on their experiences with maltreatment and violence, and had their reading levels assessed using the Wide Range Achievement Test. Sixty percent of the children had low reading levels (reading level below 6th grade at age 12). In mul- tivariate analyses, having witnessed family violence emerged as a unique predictor of low reading level (odds ratio = 1.45). These findings highlight the academic difficulties likely to accompany the emotional effects of witnessed family violence.

KEYWORDS reading, family violence, adolescence

There is a large body of literature demonstrating that early adverse experi- ences of children can have a profound impact on a host of child outcomes. As noted by Cicchetti and Toth (1995), the child’s environment and adverse experiences occurring therein can affect such things as affect regulation, peer

Submitted 19 May 2009; revised 12 August 2009; accepted 21 October 2009. This work was supported by Grant 90-CA-1747 from the Administration for Children and

Families. It benefited from the comments of Richard H. Calica. Rochelle Jackson provided the administrative support for this work, and suggested the examination of this question, for which we are grateful. Data management was provided by the LONGSCAN Coordinating Center at University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill.

Address correspondence to Richard Thompson, 1707 N. Halsted, Chicago, IL 60614. E-mail: [email protected]

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relationships, and self-perception, and these factors in turn can influence more distal child outcomes. Anda et al. (2006) also noted that childhood trauma can have diffuse effects on neurobiological development, influencing cognition, attention, and self-regulation, as well as social outcomes. These processes, in turn, can have far-reaching influences on functioning in dis- parate domains. Thus, when such indirect effects of adverse experiences are taken into account, the effects of such adversities are widespread.

Although most of the attention on child outcomes of adversities has focused on mental health and related issues (e.g., Éthier, Lemelin, & Lacharité, 2004; Sternberg, Lamb, Guterman, & Abbott, 2006), recent research has also found effects on other child outcomes, such as school and aca- demic outcomes. One of the most important long-term outcomes among the various academic outcomes, aside from high school graduation, is lit- eracy. Research in education stresses the importance of reading ability in the early years, particularly kindergarten and first grade, as a predictor of literacy over time (Hanson & Farrell, 1995). In addition, Denton and West (2002) suggested that other factors, such as the home environment, have an important role in positive literacy gains across socioeconomic groups. Therefore, to better understand child outcomes, it is important to exam- ine academic achievement within the context of the home and school environment.

There are myriad experiences that can occur in childhood that entail adversity. Of particular importance is direct victimization of a child (e.g., in the form of maltreatment), which is regarded as a particularly noxious adverse experience with profound implications for children’s outcomes in many domains (Cicchetti & Toth, 1995; Turner, Finkelhor, & Ormrod, 2006). In addition to the general impact maltreatment has on a child’s function- ing, maltreatment has been found to have particularly deleterious effects on children’s academic functioning (Slade & Wissow, 2007; Wodarski, Kurtz, Gaudin, & Howing, 1990).

Although less frequently considered, children’s indirect exposure to violence is also important; children’s experiences of witnessed violence have similarly profound implications for child development in a similarly diverse set of domains (Spano, Rivera, & Bolland, 2006). Most of the research on the effects of witnessed violence have focused on psycho- logical or behavioral sequelae (Onyskiw, 2003), but other domains have also been linked to witnessed violence. Indeed, there is some limited evidence that children’s experiences of witnessed violence affect school performance in particular, both in the short and long term (Hurt, Malmud, Brodsky, & Giannetta, 2001). Is all witnessed violence equally problem- atic? The answer to that question remains unclear. However, there is some evidence that shows that the effect of witnessing family (as opposed to non- family) violence is particularly noxious for children’s outcomes generally (McDonald, Jouriles, Briggs-Gowan, Rosenfield, & Carter, 2007). Witnessed

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domestic or family violence has been linked to poor mental health and to substance and alcohol abuse (Ford, Hartman, Hawke, & Chapman, 2008). The link, however, has not been established for academic outcomes in particular.

Any examination of academic outcomes must also take into account some key demographic factors. As noted by Slade and Wissow (2007), the child’s broader context is also important in understanding school outcomes. Socioeconomic indicators have frequently been found to impact school out- comes (Sirin, 2005), as well as family structure (Jeynes, 2000) and child ethnicity or race (Kao & Thompson, 2003). However it is likely that the effects of race are at least partially explained by the broader social context of education (Weinstein, Gregory, & Strambler, 2004)

The purpose of this study was to examine predictors of reading level in a cohort of high-risk children. We examined a variety of potential predictors of reading level, including both maltreatment and witnessed violence, along with youth and parent psychological functioning. In particular, this study addressed whether witnessed violence contributes to low reading levels, after taking into account relevant socioeconomic and other factors. This was examined in a sample of children aged 12 years old, around the time of their transition to middle school, a particularly important time for academic achievement (Burchinal, Roberts, Zeisel, & Rowley, 2008).

METHODS

Study and Participants

The data presented here were collected as part of the Capella Project, one site in a large longitudinal multisite study of child maltreatment and its out- comes (LONGSCAN; Runyan et al., 1998). The initial stages of the study have been described in more detail elsewhere (Thompson, 2005), but are briefly summarized here. A total of 316 families with a young infant and at high risk for maltreatment were recruited for participation. Of these, 245 were followed past the age of 4 years old, and were followed past the data collection for the analyses reported here.

For this project, the target children and their primary caregivers were assessed annually. These annual assessments included a comprehensive assessment at age 12, which is the focus of the analyses presented here. These analyses focused on children who were available to participate at age 12 and who completed the Wide Range Achievement Test–Reading (WRAT; Wilkinson, 1993). Children in the study did not complete the WRAT for one of four reasons: (a) children were not available for assessments, (b) children lived too far away to complete the WRAT in person as part of their assess- ments, (c) children had not yet reached the age of 12 by the time of the interview, and (d) children had a physical disability or developmental delay

724 R. Thompson and L. A. Whimper

that prevented them from completing the WRAT. Of the 245 children in the study, 133 (54.3%) completed the WRAT assessment at age 12. The children who completed the WRAT were compared to those who had not completed it on demographic variables. The only significant difference between the two was that those who had completed the WRAT were more likely to be African American (65.4%) than were those who did not complete the WRAT (40.4%), χ 2(1, N = 245) = 16.68, p < .01.

Descriptive data on the analysis sample is presented in Table 1. More than half of the sample had been reported to child protective services (CPS) for maltreatment. The sample was split quite evenly between boys and girls. Roughly two thirds of the sample was African American. Family income was relatively low and more than half of the mothers in the study had never been married. Children reported higher levels of behavioral problems, particularly internalizing, than did their mothers. More than three quarters of the sample had witnessed violence involving a nonfamily member. In terms of reading level, fewer than half of the children in the sample were reading at an adequate grade-appropriate level.

Assessment and Measures

The analyses presented here focus on the annual assessment conducted at age 12. They also use data collected as part of frequent ongoing reviews of child welfare records.

CPS MALTREATMENT ALLEGATIONS

Capella Project investigators periodically reviewed state CPS data to check for allegations of maltreatment of the sample children from infancy through age 12. Children were assigned a dichotomous code, based on whether any maltreatment allegations had occurred during this time frame.

DEMOGRAPHIC INFORMATION

Demographic information on the child–caregiver dyads were collected at each assessment. The results reported here use demographic data collected at age 12.

YOUTH BEHAVIORAL PROBLEMS

Both youth report and caregiver report were used to assess youth behavioral problems. The Youth Self Report (YSR; Achenbach & Rescorla, 2001) is a self- report measure of child behavioral problems. The analyses presented here focus on externalizing problems (which make up the Delinquent Behavior and Aggressive Behavior subscales) and internalizing problems (which make

Exposure to Family Violence and Reading Level 725

up the Withdrawal, Somatic Complaints, and Anxious/Depressed subscales). The Child Behavior Checklist (CBCL; Achenbach, 1991), a widely vali- dated caregiver report of child behavior problems, allows the assessment of caregiver reports of many different categories of child behavioral prob- lems. The analyses presented here focus on externalizing problems (which make up the Delinquent Behavior and Aggressive Behavior subscales) and

TABLE 1 Descriptive Data on the Sample

Variable % n M SD

Predictor variables Maltreatment (CPS) 57.9% 77 Gender:

Male 50.4% 67 Female 49.6% 66

Race: African American 65.4% 87 Other 24.8% 33 White 9.8% 13

Parent education 11.94 1.93 Family income (in thousands of

dollars) 21.95 12.65

Mother marital status: Single 55.6% 74 Former 13.5% 18 Married 26.3% 35

YSR: Externalizing 9.87 6.80 Internalizing 10.30 7.36

CBCL: Externalizing 8.53 7.31 Internalizing 5.56 5.56

CES–D caregiver distress 11.08 8.89 Witnessed violence:

Family 21.1% 28 Nonfamily 75.9% 101

Physical abuse (self-report) 18.0% 24 Sexual abuse (self-report) 12.8% 17 Psychological abuse (self-report) 36.1% 48 Parent involvement: Physical

needs) 2.87 0.35

Parent involvement: Emotional needs)

2.57 0.53

Parent involvement: Monitoring/supervision

2.72 0.43

Parent involvement: Educational 2.52 0.57 Outcome variable

WRAT reading level: Adequate 39.8% 53 Low 60.2% 80

Note: N = 133. CPS = Child Protective Services records; YSR = Youth Self-Report; CBCL = Child Behavior Checklist; CES–D = Community Epidemiologic Survey on Depression; WRAT = Wide Range Achievement Test.

726 R. Thompson and L. A. Whimper

Internalizing problems (which make up the Withdrawal, Somatic Complaints, and Anxious/Depressed subscales). The CBCL and the YSR are directly com- parable with minor differences; the CBCL uses the same response set and list of symptoms, with the caregiver reporting on child symptoms (in the case of the CBCL) and the child reporting on his or her own symptoms (in the case of the YSR).

CAREGIVER PSYCHOLOGICAL DISTRESS

Caregiver psychological distress was assessed using the Community Epidemiologic Survey for Depression (CES–D; Radloff, 1977), a 20-item measure. In the CES–D, respondents rate themselves on the severity of a variety of symptoms of distress. The CES–D has been extensively validated (e.g., Knight, Williams, McGee, & Olaman, 1997).

WITNESSED VIOLENCE SELF-REPORT

As part of the assessment, children were asked whether they had witnessed any of eight forms of violence, ranging from minor acts of physical assault to severe forms of violence, including murder. Each positive endorsement of a witnessed event elicited follow-up questions that included who the victim(s) and perpetrator(s) were for each type of event endorsed (options included specific family members, friends, and strangers). For these analyses, the responses to this scale were dichotomized into two scales—children were categorized as to whether they had witnessed any form of violence that involved a nonfamily member either as a perpetrator or a victim and whether they had witnessed any form of violence that involved a family member either as a perpetrator or a victim.

CHILD ABUSE SELF-REPORT

Children were administered a project-developed self-report measure of mal- treatment in the form of sexual abuse, physical abuse, and emotional abuse (Everson et al., 2008). These measures had a series of stem questions ask- ing about the experience of broad categories of maltreatment. Children who endorsed having experienced any of the forms of physical abuse or sexual abuse were categorized as having experienced physical or sexual abuse, respectively.

PARENT INVOLVEMENT

Parent involvement was assessed using a project-modified version of the Neglect Scale (Straus, Kinard, & Williams, 1995). This version of the scale consisted of 25 items that measured children’s perceptions of their interac- tions with their primary caregivers. Each item asked how often caregivers

Exposure to Family Violence and Reading Level 727

attended to particular child needs. These items were categorized into four broad areas of parental involvement: child physical needs, child emotional needs, child needs for monitoring or supervision, and child educational needs. Mean scores on the scales were used, ranging from 0 (no parental involvement) to 3 (very high levels of involvement).

READING LEVEL

Reading level was assessed with the WRAT Reading subtest (Wilkinson, 1993). This standardized test assesses an individual’s ability to recognize and name letters and pronounce words of increasing difficulty. Its scoring manual allows the calculation of reading grade levels, based on the responses. As noted earlier, the transition into middle school is important (Burchinal et al., 2008), and the degree to which youth are reading at near their grade level is especially important. Earlier research has highlighted the distinction between reading levels of sixth grade and lower in students entering middle school (commonly at age 12; Burchinal et al., 2008). This is consistent with local school board achievement and promotion policy at eighth grade. The promotion criteria states that student have to score above the 24th percentile on a district-endorsed standardized test to be academi- cally prepared for the next level of education. In effect, in these analyses, children with a reading level of fifth grade or lower were defined as having poor reading levels in the dichotomized WRAT outcome measure.

Analyses

In the first, more exploratory part of the analyses, separate bivariate logistic regression analyses were conducted to examine the link between each of the candidate predictor variables and the binary outcome (low reading lev- els). In the second part of the analyses, all those predictor variables found to be significant predictors of low reading level at p < .10 were entered simultaneously into a multivariate logistic regression to examine which of these potential predictors independently predicted low reading levels.

RESULTS

Proportion of Children with Low Reading Level

As noted earlier, children were dichotomized into those with adequate read- ing levels (reading at sixth-grade level or higher) and low reading levels (reading at fifth-grade level or lower). A majority of the children in the study were at low reading levels (60.2%, n = 80). A smaller number of children were at an adequate reading level (39.8%, n = 53).

728 R. Thompson and L. A. Whimper

Bivariate Predictors of Low Reading Level

A series of bivariate logistic regression analyses were conducted to examine the relationship between the predictor variables and low reading level. The following predictors were examined: maltreatment; child gender; child race; caregiver education level; family income; mother marital status; externalizing and internalizing behavioral problems as reported by the youth (YSR) and caregiver (CBCL); caregiver psychological distress (CES–D); youth- reported family and nonfamily violence; youth-reported physical, sexual, and emotional abuse; and parent involvement. Of these potential predictor variables examined, four were significant or approached significance in bivariate analyses: maltreatment, child race, mother marital status, and wit- nessed family violence. Relative to White children, African American children were more than four times more likely to have low reading levels; relative to children of married parents, children of single parents were more than three times more likely to have low reading levels. Both reported maltreat- ment and witnessed family violence were also associated with low reading levels.

Multivariate Predictors of Low Reading Level

The next step entailed entering the potential predictors found to be sig- nificant in bivariate analyses into a multivariate logistic regression. The correlations between the significant bivariate predictors are presented in Table 2. As can be seen, only African American race and caregiver marital status were significantly correlated in this sample. Next, a single multivariate logistic regression equation was created, entering all of the predictors that were significant or approached significance in bivariate analyses (official reports of maltreatment, race, mother marital status, and having witnessed violence involving a family member). The results of this multivariate analysis are presented in Table 3. As can be seen, when controlling for other predictors, both race and official reports of maltreatment were no longer significant as predictors. Two factors remained significant as predictors of low reading level: marital status and having witnessed violence involving

TABLE 2 Correlations among Bivariate Predictors of Low Reading Level (Logistic Regression)

Variable Maltreatment Race: African

American Mother marital status: Single

Witnessed violence: Family

Maltreatment (CPS): Yes — — — — Race: African American −.01 — — — Mother marital status: Single −.03 .37∗ — — Witnessed violence: Family .04 .11 −.03 — Note: CPS = Child Protective Services records. ∗Significant at p < .05.

Exposure to Family Violence and Reading Level 729

TABLE 3 Multivariate Predictors of Low Reading Level (Logistic Regression)

Variable Wald df b SE OR CI p

Constant 4.41 1 −1.64 0.78 0.19∗ .04∗ Maltreatment (CPS) 1.43 1 0.49 0.41 1.63 [.73, 3.64] .24 Race (reference group =

White) 1.58 2 .45

African American 1.45 1 0.94 0.78 2.57 [.55, 11.92] .23 Other 1.43 1 0.95 0.80 2.58 [.54, 10.55] .23

Mother marital status (reference group = married)

6.58 2 .04∗

Single 6.05 1 1.19 0.48 3.28∗ [.27, 8.45] .01∗

Former 0.17 1 0.26 0.64 1.30 [.37, 4.59] .46 Witnessed violence: Family 3.88 1 0.38 0.17 1.45∗ [1.01, 2.11] .04∗

Note: Overall model significant: χ 2(6, N = 133) = 18.58. CPS = Child Protective Services records. ∗Significant at p < .05.

family members. In particular, children whose mothers had never been mar- ried were at a more than threefold risk of having low reading levels and children who witnessed violence involving family members were more than 1.5 times as likely to have low reading levels.

DISCUSSION

The purpose of these analyses was to examine whether witnessed violence, maltreatment victimization, or both contribute to low reading levels. The main finding of this research was that, in fact, children who had witnessed violence were at substantially increased risk of having a low reading level. Indeed, a child who reported having witnessed violence involving a fam- ily member was about 1.5 times as likely to have low reading levels as a child who did not report having witnessed family violence, even after taking into account several possible confounding variables. This effect was specific to family violence, however; children who had witnessed violence that did not involve family members showed no such elevation in risk of reading problems. In addition, child maltreatment had a marginal impact on reading problems in bivariate analyses, and this effect disappeared com- pletely when potential confounds were taken into account in multivariate analyses.

This finding, demonstrating an effect of witnessing family violence on child reading levels, is consistent with some previous research. As noted earlier, family violence in particular is associated with a host of negative outcomes (McDonald et al., 2007), including neurocognitive deficits (Anda et al., 2006). There is also some evidence that, as with maltreatment (Slade & Wissow, 2007), children’s experience of witnessed violence can have some influence on school performance (Hurt et al., 2001). There has been,

730 R. Thompson and L. A. Whimper

however, little research specifically linking witnessed violence to reading dif- ficulties. Thus, these analyses add to a small and growing body of research linking witnessed violence to a variety of negative academic outcomes.

Several other variables had bivariate links with low reading level; specif- ically, African American children and children from single-parent homes were also at elevated risk of low reading level. In the multivariate analy- ses, the effect of race was no longer significant, apparently accounted for by single-parent homes, exposure to family violence, or both. The effect of single-parent homes remained significant; however, relative to children from two-parent homes, children from single-parent homes had more than a threefold risk of low reading level. This is consistent with a large body of literature that has found that children from single-parent homes are at increased risk for a variety of poor academic outcomes, although much of this can be attributable to socioeconomic factors (De Bell, 2008). It is possible that some unmeasured socioeconomic factor might have been operating similarly on the children in this study.

It is also noteworthy to acknowledge the factors that did not appear to influence risk of low reading level. As noted earlier, there was no significant effect of maltreatment history on reading, after accounting for the effects of having witnessed family violence. Although past research has found an influ- ence of maltreatment on academic outcomes (Slade & Wissow, 2007), it is important to consider that maltreatment occurs in a larger context. Children who have been reported as maltreated are also likely to have witnessed family violence, to come from low-income families, and to be exposed to elevated community violence. These other factors might explain part of the apparent link between maltreatment and academic outcomes. Alternatively, an effect of maltreatment might have been found on other academic out- comes, or there might be specific effects of particular forms of maltreatment. Finally, it is important to keep in mind that the assessment of maltreatment relied on CPS records, which can be influenced by a variety of biases and are likely to underestimate the prevalence of maltreatment (Drake, 1996). There was also no significant effect of family income. This effect might have been subsumed by the effect of family structure. Alternatively, it might have been the result of restricted range, as the bulk of the families in this sample had extremely low incomes.

Finally, the high rate of poor reading in this sample was striking; nearly two thirds of the sample had reading levels substantially below that expected based on age and grade level. The exposure to witnessed violence in the sample and the family structure noted might explain some of the variance, but not the overall rate. Rather, it is important to keep in mind the par- ticularities of the sample, apart from the exposure to family violence and the family structure. This sample was a high-risk sample of children taken from several neighborhoods in a large Midwestern urban center. Although they were selected for increased exposure to family violence, in other ways

Exposure to Family Violence and Reading Level 731

they were quite similar to other children in their neighborhoods (Thompson, 2005). Although neighborhood did not have an effect on the variance within the sample (because all children came from similar neighborhoods), it is possible that it had an impact on the overall rate of reading difficulties. The children in the sample attended public schools in economically depressed urban communities, where academic problems are common (Sirin, 2005). It is not clear whether the effects of witnessed family violence would have such a strong effect on children in more advantageous academic settings.

Overall, these analyses provide some initial support for the notion that witnessed violence, particularly family violence, has a deleterious impact on children’s reading ability. Further research should examine why this is the case, and how best to intervene to help children who have been exposed to such violence.

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