Abstract
The incidence of HIV/AIDS continues to rise among impoverished, urban, African American women, yet the children of these women have been overlooked in the literature. The primary aim of this study was to determine the relationship of maternal HIV status to child academic performance. In addition, we examined whether family variables (e.g., maternal education, parenting) related to academic performance similarly or differently in families in which mothers were and were not infected. Finally, the roles of stage of maternal HIV infection and school attendance in the relation between maternal HIV status and child academic performance were examined. Participants included two groups: 85 African American, HIV-infected women and their noninfected children, and 148 noninfected African American women and their children. Maternal HIV status predicted children's grades, and the relation between family variables and child academic performance was similar in the infected and noninfected samples. School attendance appeared to be a mechanism that may explain the relationship between maternal HIV status and child academic performance.
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Biggar, H., Forehand, R., Chance, M.W. et al. The Relationship of Maternal HIV Status and Home Variables to Academic Performance of African American Children. AIDS Behav 4, 241–252 (2000). https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1009564617895
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1009564617895