The long arm of adversity: Children's kindergarten math skills are associated with maternal childhood adversity

Abstract

Background: Childhood adversity is associated with poorer health and lower academic achievement later in life. Poor math skills in particular place individuals at higher risk for physical and mental illness, unemployment, and incarceration, suggesting math achievement may be one explanatory mechanism linking adversity to later functioning. While it is well documented that children's adversity is associated with lower academic achievement, it is also plausible that adversity mothers experience across their lifetime may affect the child's academic achievement.

Objective: Determine whether adversity children directly experience and adversity mothers experience in their own childhood and/or adulthood is related to children's kindergarten math skills.

Participants and methods: 91 Mothers completed the Assessment of Parent and Child Adversity questionnaire, and their kindergartners completed the KeyMath-3 Diagnostic Assessment.

Results: Maternal childhood adversity, but not adulthood adversity, was negatively related to children's numeration (β = -0.27, 95% CI [-0.48, -0.05], p = .015) and addition/subtraction abilities in kindergarten (β = -0.25, 95% CI [-0.46, -0.04], p = .023). Maternal childhood maltreatment and other adversity were together related to their child's numeration only (R² = 0.08, 95% CI [0.02, 0.23], p = .026). Prevalence of children's direct adversity was low and not related to their kindergarten math skills.

Conclusions: Our findings suggest that adversity impacts children's math skills as early as kindergarten via the intergenerational transmission of maternal adversity. Mothers that experienced early-life adversity and their children may benefit from early intervention to level the playing field at school entry.

Keywords: Academic achievement; Adversity; Intergenerational transmission; Math skills; Stress.