The Effects of Asthma on Academic Achievement in a Sample of Former Head Start Children

The ways in which a diagnosis of asthma can affect the academic achievement of students were examined in a sample of 5,711 former Head Start children, 788 of which were identified as having asthma. Results indicated statistically significant group differences in standardized reading and mathematics scores, with students with asthma performing worse than students without this diagnosis in both academic areas. In reference to reading abilities among students with asthma, indicators of socioeconomic status, gender, and level of school absences were found to be predictive of reading scores. Regarding mathematics abilities, results indicated the significant contribution of both socioeconomic status and level of school absences in predicting the math scores of students with asthma. Variables regarding the family environment did not make a significant contribution to explaining the asthma-academic achievement relationship beyond the effects of these variables