Maternal perinatal mental health and offspring academic achievement at age 16: the mediating role of childhood executive function
2016
Background: Elucidating risk pathways for under-achieving at school can inform strategies to reduce the number of
adolescents leaving school without passing grades in core subjects. Maternal depression can compromise the quality
of parental care and is associated with multiple negative child outcomes. However, only a few small studies have
investigated the association between perinatal maternal depression and poor academic achievement in adolescence.
The pathways to explain the risks are also unclear. Method: Prospective observational data from 5,801 parents and
adolescents taking part in a large UK population cohort (Avon-Longitudinal-Study-of-Parents-and-Children) were
used to test associations between maternal and paternal depression and anxiety in the perinatal period, executive
function (EF) at age 8, and academic achievement at the end of compulsory school at age 16. Results: Adolescents of
postnatally depressed mothers were 1.5 times (1.19, 1.94, p = .001) as likely as adolescents of nondepressed
mothers to fail to achieve a ‘pass’ grade in math; antenatal anxiety was also an independent predictor of poor math.
Disruption in different components of EF explained small but significant proportions of these associations:
attentional control explained 16% (4%, 27%, p < .001) of the association with postnatal depression, and working
memory explained 17% (13%, 30%, p = .003) of the association with antenatal anxiety. A similar pattern was seen for
language grades, but associations were confounded by maternal education. There was no evidence that paternal
factors were independently associated with impaired child EF or adolescent exams. Conclusion: Maternal postnatal
depression and antenatal anxiety are risk factors for adolescents underachieving in math. Preventing, identifying,
and treating maternal mental health in the perinatal period could, therefore, potentially increase adolescents’
academic achievement. Different aspects of EF partially mediated these associations. Further work is needed, but if
these pathways are causal, improving EF could reduce underachievement in math.
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