Her study of 229 nine-year-olds focused on low-achievers – those who had fallen more than 18 months behind their classmates – and what factors set them apart from their peers.
Remarkably, she found that about half those in the low-achieving groups for reading, listening and spelling – and an alarming 70 per cent of those behind in maths – had suffered asthma.
Typically, one in four Christchurch children have asthma. So Ms Liberty's study shows that asthmatics are over-represented amongst low-achievers by a factor of at least two and possibly as much as three.
The results held true when other factors such as gender, ethnicity, school absence, and emotional or behaviour characteristics were taken into account, Ms Liberty said.
"Presence of asthma was a significant predictor of reading achievement level along with short attention span and income category," she said. "The presence of asthma was the only factor that accurately predicted achievement level in math."
