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Several cognitive deficits associated with reading and mathematics problems have been identified. However, only few studies assessed the impact of these variables in children with combined problems in reading and arithmetics, and none of these studies included children with low IQ. This longitudinal study was designed to assess the impact of different cognitive variables as well as socioeconomic status on literacy and mathematics development of elementary school children with different kinds of learning problems and IQ levels over the course of 2 years. A total of six subgroups was selected from a total sample of 929 second-grade children, with the subgroups differing according to their IQ level and the type of learning disorder. The subgroups consisted of initially 24 reading disabled, 22 mathematics disabled, 35 combined, and 29 low- and 28 overachieving children, as well as 28 typically developing children. Participants were repeatedly assessed in regard to their literacy, mathematics, IQ as well as specific and general cognitive variables. Overall, reading problems were linked to deficits in phonological awareness, while mathematics problems were linked to memory and attention deficits. Children with combined problems showed additive deficits in phonological awareness and attention. The same applied for low-achieving children who were additionally characterized by low socioeconomic status. Good phonological awareness served as a protective factor in overachieving children. The correlation of cognitive variables and group membership was more pronounced at the end of elementary school than in grade 2. Our results confirm an additive approach of cognitive deficits in children with combined learning problems. Phonological awareness constitutes not only a risk factor for learning problems but also a protective factor for good academic achievement in children with low IQ.

Background: A deficit in empathy is discussed to underlie difficulties in social interaction of children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and conduct disorder (CD). To date, no study has compared children with ASD and different subtypes of CD to describe disorder-specific empathy profiles in clinical samples. Furthermore, little is known about age influences on the development of empathic skills. The aim of the current study was to compare cognitive and emotional empathy in different age groups of children with ASD, CD with elevated or low callous-unemotional-traits (CU+ vs. CU-) and a matched control group (CG). Methods: Fifty-five boys with ASD, 36 boys with CD-CU+, 34 boys with CD-CU- and 67 controls were included. The study implemented three tasks on emotion recognition, perspective taking and emotional affection induced by another person's situation. Multivariate Analysis of variance with the factors group and age (median split) including their interaction term was performed to describe disorder-specific profiles. Results: Empathy profiles showed differential impairment in children with ASD and CD-CU+. Boys with ASD were impaired in cognitive empathy while participants with CD-CU+ were impaired in emotional empathy. Children with CD-CU- did not differ from the CG. However, boys with CD-CU- were less emotionally reactive in response to film stimuli than children with ASD. Furthermore, we found strong age effects indicating an increase in cognitive and affective empathic skills beyond early infancy in all groups. Conclusions: In this study, distinct empathic profiles in children with ASD and CD-CU+ were found. Furthermore, the work demonstrates improvement of empathic skills throughout childhood and adolescence, which is comparable for individuals with psychiatric disorders and control children. These results yield implications for further research as well as for therapeutic interventions.

Children who were 4 to 8 years of age were asked to perform a sort-recall task where only half of the items had to be studied and remembered. Following a baseline trial, children were assigned to 1 of 3 groups and were prompted to use either a sorting or a clustering strategy (experimental groups) or were not prompted at all (control group). Children were seen 2 weeks later and given a new set of items for the transfer-of-training sort-recall phases. Levels of recall and strategy use (sorting, clustering, multiple strategy use) were higher for older children, typical items, sorting prompts, and trials with repeated presentations of test materials. Older children used more strategies than younger children, although even 4-year-olds used more than one strategy when performing the memory tasks. Results of multivariate cluster analyses revealed systematic individual differences, separating low performers from production-deficient children and high performers. Overall, findings show that clustering appears to be an early developing, but less effective strategy, with multiple-strategy use and especially sorting being used more frequently and effectively by older children. (Contains 1 footnote, 9 tables and 10 figures.)

Factors that influence the incidence of utilization deficiencies and other recall/strategy-use patterns on a strategic memory task were evaluated in two hundred and fourteen 7- and 9-year-old children. Both utilization deficiencies and the incidence of children showing increases in both recall and strategy use over phases were more likely to be observed on phase transitions involving prompting or when different lists of items were included on consecutive trials; in contrast, increases in recall in the absence of increases in strategy use were more likely to be found between trials consisting of the same stimulus items. This research clearly indicates that patterns of recall/strategy-use relations, including utilization deficiencies, vary meaningfully with the age of the child and a variety of contextual factors.

Selective mutism (SM) is classified under the category of anxiety disorders in DSM-5 [1], although concrete fears that underlie the condition are not specified contrary to all other anxiety disorders. Given the lack of studies systematically investigating fears in SM, content and frequency of concrete fears as well as related cognitions have remained unclear so far. One hundred and twenty-four participants [M = 13.25 years (SD = 3.24), range 8–18 years] with SM (n = 65), social phobia (SP n = 18) or with typical development (TD n = 51) took part in an online survey. Participants with SM (n = 65) answered an open-ended question concerning fears that might cause the consistent failure to speak in select situations. Additionally, participants with SM, SP and TD completed a survey containing 34 fear-related cognitions that might occur in speech-demanding situations. Open text answers were systematically evaluated by extracting higher-order categories using a Qualitative Content Analysis. Single item scores of the survey were compared between the three groups. 59% of all spontaneously reported fears were assigned to the cluster of social fears. Other reported fears represented the categories fear of mistakes (28%), language-related fears (8%) and voice-related fears (5%). The SM- and SP group only differed regarding the cognition that one's own voice might sound funny (SM > SP). Social fears and the fear of mistakes account for the majority of fears in SM. Therefore, future interventions should consider specifically targeting these types of fears. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]