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THE INVESTIGATION OF SHORT TERM MEMORY SKILLS IN CHILDREN WITH ANXIETY SYMPTOMS

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Autor: Laura Visu-Petra Lavinia Cheie
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ABSTRACT:

The relationship between childhood anxiety and neurocognitive functioning in literature is mainly known at an associative level: a high level of anxiety during childhood is related to poor academic achievements. Therefore, at the moment, we have insufficient data about the mechanisms underlying this relationship.

The present study aims to investigate short-term memory (STM), one of the most important neurocognitive correlates of academic achievement, in relationship with a high level of anxiety of preschool children. After applying the Spence Preschool Anxiety Scale (Spence, Rapee, McDonald, Ingram, 2001) to parents of 67 children aged between 4 years and 11 months and 7 years, respectively (the age mean was of 72 months ± standard deviation of 6.8 months), two samples of children were obtained: 1) high anxious preschool children (Anx +), and 2) low anxious preschool children (Anx -). The two groups were tested with 6 STM tasks measuring both verbal and visuospatial STM. The main results obtained after testing the children suggest that although the verbal STM performances are better than the visuospatial STM ones on both groups, there is a clear relationship between anxiety and STM: the preschool children’s performances from the Anx + group were significantly lower than the preschool children’s results from the Anx – group on the verbal STM tasks.

Based on these results, as a practical implication, suggestions regarding the type of scholastic evaluation and the learning process of children with different levels of anxiety can be proposed. Therefore, we suggest using different academic evaluation methods for children with Anx + and the establishment of programs that aim to reduce learning disabilities generated by the anxiety-STM relationship. Also, we suggest that an early detection of anxiety (at a preschool age) and its implications upon the neurocognitive functioning would reduce the probability of poor academic achievements later on.

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