title: Mothers' causal attributions concerning the reading achievement of their children with and without familial risk for dyslexia.
abstract: The present study analyzed data from the Jyväskylä Longitudinal Study of Dyslexia to investigate the factors to which mothers of children with and without familial risk for dyslexia attribute the causes of their first-grade children's reading achievement. Mothers' causal attributions were assessed three times during their children's first school year. Children's verbal intelligence was assessed at 5 years and their word and nonword reading skills at 6.5 years. The results showed that the higher the word reading skills the children had, the more their mothers attributed their success to ability than to effort. However, if children had familial risk for dyslexia, their mothers' attribution of success to ability decreased during the first grade as compared with the ability attributions of mothers whose children were in the control group.
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, University of Jyväskylä, Jyväskylä, Finland. natale@psyka.jyu.fi
authors.forename: Katja
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Natale
authors.forename: Kaisa
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Aunola
authors.forename: Jari-Erik
authors.initials: JE
authors.lastname: Nurmi
authors.forename: Anna-Maija
authors.initials: AM
authors.lastname: Poikkeus
authors.forename: Paula
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Lyytinen
authors.forename: Heikki
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Lyytinen
mesh_terms: D000124:Achievement; D001290:Attitude; D002648:Child; D004410:Dyslexia / Q000235:genetics*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D009035:Mothers; D011932:Reading; D014705:Verbal Behavior