DSSA - Déterminants sociaux de santé

Social determinants of psychological and specific learning disorders in school children – DYSEDEN

Determinants of children's psychological development and learning abilities

To be translated

Children's cognitive and psychological development: a major societal issue

Childhood learning disorders (dyslexia, dysorthography, dyscalculia) and psychological disorders (conduct disorders, emotional disorders, pervasive developmental disorders…) engender enormous social costs across the whole life span. It is therefore of utmost importance to understand the factors that increase the susceptibility to these disorders, and to identify those on which an intervention may be possible. Factors affecting the development of learning and psychological disorders in children form a complicated network where genes, environment, culture, life events, and psychosocial factors are in dynamic interaction with one another. The present project will focus on social determinants of learning and psychological disorders. The present project proposes to capitalise on an exceptional dataset already collected by the EDEN epidemiological project on about 1500 children followed from gestation to the age of 8 years. The goal is to prolong the project until those children are 11-12 years old and test them on their scholastic achievements and learning abilities, as well as collect information relative to their psychological health and disorders. Together with all the data already collected on the social and biological factors relative to these children, as well as the data relative to their earlier stages of their development, this new step promises to provide new insights into the determinants of learning abilities and disorders, and psychological health and disorders.

All families included in the EDEN project and having agreed to continue to participate will be contacted for a new participation phase when the child is 11-12 years old. This phase takes the form of tests and questionnaires that participants will take in their home on their personal computer. A dedicated software to be downloaded contains 20 tests presented as games and 3 questionnaires for the child. Parents have 6 questionnaires to fill in on a website.

The test battery includes both general tests of scholastic achievement and more specific cognitive tests necessary for the diagnosis of specific learning disorders. All tests will be implemented on a web interface, with instructions presented in both written and spoken form simultaneously, stimuli presented on screen or through headphones, and responses taken on keyboard. The only exception will be tests requiring a verbal output (reading aloud and phonological tests), for which stimuli will be presented on screen and verbal output will be recorded over the phone by the research assistant. Behaviour and psychopathology will be assessed through questionnaires answered by one parent, also on the web interface.
The battery taps:
• Verbal and non-verbal intellectual abilities
• Word, pseudo-word and text reading (telephone)
• Silent reading and text comprehension
• Spelling skills (spelling to dictation of words and sentences; orthographic choice)
• Phonological skills relevant to reading and dyslexia: phonological awareness, rapid automatized naming, verbal short-term memory (telephone).
• Visual-attentional skills.
• Mathematical skills (number reading, multiplications, simple additions, written calculation, arithmetical problem solving).
• Specific tests of numeracy (non-symbolic number comparison, symbolic number comparison, manipulation of numerical symbols)
Parental questionnaires bear on the child’s environment, activities, behaviour, potential difficulties, and sleep.

The present project aims to provide insights in the following domains:
Prevalence
The present project will be the first epidemiological study of learning disorders in France. Even though the population studied is not entirely representative, it will still provide a good indication of the prevalence of each disorder, given that learning disorders are quite frequent. The prevalence estimates obtained will be far more reliable than just relying on estimates from other countries, given the large modulation of learning disorders by the ambient language.
Learning disorders vs. school difficulties
At the moment there are great confusions between school difficulties at large and learning disorders. Obviously, school difficulties are influenced by a multitude of factors, learning disorders being only one of them. However, the specific contribution of learning disorders to school difficulties remains totally unknown in France. This will be determined here by distinguishing general tests of scholastic achievement and specific diagnostic tests, and by using diagnostic criteria for learning disorders.
Comorbidity
We will investigate the patterns of comorbidity between the three types of learning disorders, as well as between learning disorders and psychological disorders.
Determinants of learning and psychological disorders
Determinants will include earlier stages of psychological development, social factors, as well as biological factors. Even when main effects of certain factors (e.g., SES) are already well-known, interactions between factors will be of particular interest to us (e.g. SES with life events).
Eventually, structural equation models will allow us to test models integrating these three classes of predictors.

A better understanding of the social determinants of learning and psychological disorders could enable us to identify specific social factors on which interventions would be possible. For instance, it could help improve the information and education provided to parents on: nutrition, hygiene and health, modes of education and interaction with children, and other forms of parental guidance. It could provide health professionals and social workers with new, more reliable or earlier indicators of poor prognostic that would allow for earlier or more efficient interventions. It could inspire more specific and more efficient interventions. And it could also inspire new social policies aiming to mitigate certain adverse factors or to provide prevention or intervention (for instance, psychological help for depressed mothers). Altogether such progress could help reduce the huge burden imposed by learning and psychological disorders across the entire life span.

N/A.

Childhood learning disorders (dyslexia, dysorthography, dyscalculia) and psychological disorders (conduct disorders, emotional disorders, pervasive developmental disorders…) engender enormous social costs across the whole life span. It is therefore of utmost importance to understand the factors that increase the susceptibility to these disorders, and to identify those on which an intervention may be possible. Factors affecting the development of learning and psychological disorders in children form a complicated network where genes, environment, culture, life events, and psychosocial factors are in dynamic interaction with one another. Furthermore, there are bidirectional interactions between learning abilities and mental health, with mental disorders affecting learning outcomes, and with school difficulties due to learning disorders increasing the susceptibility to emotional and behavioural disorders. The present project will focus on social determinants of learning and psychological disorders. The present project proposes to capitalise on an exceptional dataset already collected by the EDEN epidemiological project on about 1500 children followed from gestation to the age of 5 years. The goal is to prolong the project until those children are 10 years old, to test them on their scholastic achievements and learning abilities, and to collect information relative to their psychological health and disorders. Together with all the data already collected on the social and biological environment and make-up of these children, as well as the data relative to their earlier stages of their development, this new step promises to provide new insights into the determinants of learning abilities and disorders, and psychological health and disorders.

Project coordination

Franck RAMUS (Laboratoire de sciences cognitives et psycholinguistique) – franck.ramus@ens.fr

The author of this summary is the project coordinator, who is responsible for the content of this summary. The ANR declines any responsibility as for its contents.

Partner

LSCP Laboratoire de sciences cognitives et psycholinguistique
Inserm CESP Inserm, UMRS1018, CESP, Equipe 10 "Epidémiologie du diabète, de l'obésité et des maladies rénales: approche vie entière"

Help of the ANR 263,002 euros
Beginning and duration of the scientific project: February 2013 - 36 Months

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