Reading development, mental health, and hearing (Salins et al., 2025)

Purpose: Reported ear and hearing difficulties (rEHD) are known to be associated with reading difficulties as well as mental health problems. In this study, we aim to examine the relationship between reading and mental health in children with rEHD.

Method: In this study, we used structural equation modeling to measure the strength of longitudinal relationships between reading and mental health–related variables in children with rEHD—aged 5–11 years—in four large longitudinal databases from the United Kingdom (n = 5,254), the United States (ns = 1,541 and 6,401), and Australia (n = 2,272). We then compared these relationships to those measured in children with typical development.

Results and Conclusions: For children with rEHD, we found that attention at age 5 years was related to later reading at age 7 years, which in turn was related to later behavior, attention, anxiety, bullying, and reading self-concept at age 9 years. These relationships did not differ to those measured in children with typical development, which supports the replicability and, hence, reliability of these longitudinal relationships in children regardless of hearing status.

Supplemental Material S1. Full scripts and model results.

Supplemental Material S2. ICD-10 codes used for identification of EHD group.

Supplemental Material S3. SDQ items used to create the latent variables of depression, peer problems, anxiety, and externalizing behaviors in the MCS and LSAC analyses (modified from McArthur et al., 2021).

Salins, A., McArthur, G., Jones, A., & Robidoux, S. (2025). A longitudinal study of reading and mental health development in children with reported ear and hearing difficulties. Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research. Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1044/2024_JSLHR-24-00471