Huang Jie, Yu Dongqing, Tang Xiaoxue, Xu Yili, Zhong Xiao, Lai Xiaoqian
Faculty of Education, Northeast Normal University, Changchun 130024, China.
Faculty of Education, Wenzhou University, Wenzhou 325035, China.
Behav Sci (Basel). 2025 Jun 6;15(6):785. doi: 10.3390/bs15060785.
Problem behaviors and the risk of learning disorders in early childhood carry significant implications for children's future development. Understanding the relationship between parenting stress and these developmental outcomes may inform the design of effective interventions to promote healthy child development. The present longitudinal study investigated the association between parenting stress and preschoolers' risk of learning disorders, specifically focusing on the mediating role of problem behaviors. Data were collected at two time points, approximately 6 months apart, from 284 preschool-aged children and their parents (mean age of children at Time 1 = 56.64 months; 53.17% of them were girls). Parents completed standardized assessments of parenting stress, children's problem behaviors, and the risk of learning disorders. An autoregressive cross-lagged panel model within a half-longitudinal framework was employed to test the hypothesized mediation model. Results revealed that parenting stress had a direct effect on both children's problem behaviors and their risk of learning disorders. Moreover, children's problem behaviors partially mediated the longitudinal association between parenting stress and learning disorder risk. Specifically, the indirect effect size was statistically significant ( = 0.022, = 0.025), indicating that increased parenting stress contributed to approximately a 2.2% increase in the risk of learning disorders through elevated problem behaviors. Theoretically, these findings underscore the critical role of child behavioral adjustment as a mechanism through which parenting stress may influence developmental risk. The results highlight the potential benefits of reducing parenting stress and addressing children's behavioral difficulties to prevent early learning problems. However, the study relied exclusively on parent-reported data, which may introduce shared method variance and reporting bias; future research should incorporate multiple informants and objective behavioral assessments.
幼儿期的问题行为和学习障碍风险对儿童未来发展具有重大影响。了解育儿压力与这些发展结果之间的关系，可能为促进儿童健康发展的有效干预措施的设计提供依据。本纵向研究调查了育儿压力与学龄前儿童学习障碍风险之间的关联，特别关注问题行为的中介作用。在两个时间点收集数据，间隔约6个月，样本为284名学龄前儿童及其父母（第一次测量时儿童的平均年龄 = 56.64个月；其中53.17%为女孩）。父母完成了关于育儿压力、儿童问题行为和学习障碍风险的标准化评估。采用半纵向框架内的自回归交叉滞后面板模型来检验假设的中介模型。结果显示，育儿压力对儿童的问题行为及其学习障碍风险都有直接影响。此外，儿童的问题行为部分中介了育儿压力与学习障碍风险之间的纵向关联。具体而言，间接效应大小具有统计学意义（ = 0.022， = 0.025），表明育儿压力增加通过问题行为的增加导致学习障碍风险增加约2.2%。从理论上讲，这些发现强调了儿童行为调整作为育儿压力可能影响发展风险的一种机制的关键作用。结果突出了减轻育儿压力和解决儿童行为困难以预防早期学习问题的潜在益处。然而，该研究仅依赖家长报告的数据，这可能会引入共同方法方差和报告偏差；未来的研究应纳入多个信息提供者和客观行为评估。
