Exposure to Family Violence and Reading Level of Early Adolescents

Abstract

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 families. 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 multivariate 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

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.