Are stress and coping associated with aptitude and achievement testing performance among children? A preliminary investigation

This study examined the association of stress and coping variables with aptitude and achievement testing among children. The subjects included 100 children (61 boys, 39 girls) ranging in age from 6 to 16 years who had been referred for multidisciplinary diagnostic testing during 1989–1990. Demographic, DSMIII-R diagnostic, and testing data from the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children-Revised (WISC-R) and the Woodcock-Johnson Test-Revised (WJ-R) were examined from patient charts. The results demonstrate that stress and coping were significantly associated with performance on both aptitude and achievement testing of the referred children in this archival and correlational study. The specific stress of physical and/or sexual abuse as well as parental separation and divorce was especially associated with testing performance. Implications for future research are discussed