Is Maternal Depression In Early Childhood Related to School-Aged Children’s Later Academic Performance?

Background and Purpose: Maternal depression is a significant public health issue and may have important implications for children’s school functioning, including academic performance. Although the relation between maternal depression and child development is extensively studied, little is known about the effects of maternal depression on school-aged children’s academic performance. In addition, no studies have explicitly examined the moderating effect of mothers’ perceived support in buffering the effects of maternal depression on children’s later academic performance. This study aimed to assess whether maternal depression, reported when children were approximately five years old, was associated with children’s later academic performance in third grade (aged 8–9), and whether maternal social support acted as a protective factor.

Methods: This study used secondary data from the Massachusetts Healthy Families Evaluation Phase 2 (MHFE-2), a long-term follow-up evaluation of Healthy Families Massachusetts, a voluntary newborn home visiting program for first-time parents in Massachusetts aged 20 or younger. Participants were recruited through the combined efforts of HFM site personnel and TIER researchers and randomly assigned to either home visiting services or a referral/information-only control group. Exactly 684 mothers were enrolled at T1, 490 participated at T4 (23.6 years), and 302 valid cases were included in the analytic sample. Maternal depression was assessed using the 20-item Center for Epidemiological Studies-Depression Scale (CES-D), maternal social support was measured with the Personal Network Matrix at T4, and children’s third-grade math and English language arts (ELA) scores were obtained from the Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment System. Analyses included correlation, independent samples t-test, and moderation analysis controlling for child sex and age, maternal age, education, and home visiting status.

Results: The study found no significant impact of maternal depression on third-grade children’s math and ELA scores. Children in the non-depressive group had slightly higher mean math scores and ELA scores than children in the depressive group, but these differences were not statistically significant. Social support also did not moderate the relation between maternal depression and children’s later academic performance.

Conclusions and Implications: These findings challenge prior assumptions about maternal depression’s effects on academic outcomes and suggest that the pathways linking maternal depression and school performance may be more complex than expected. Future research should expand research scope and diversify measures, adopt a multi-dimensional approach to maternal mental health and longitudinal studies, and explore broader moderating factors and refined statistical approaches.