Introduction: Children with reading disabilities present high levels of psychopathology (Kempe, Gustafson & Samuelsson, 2011). Several authors believe in a relationship between parental styles and psychopathology (Amato, 1994; Perris, 1994), namely in children with reading disabilities (Al-Aygon, 2007) as well as in the importance of home environment upon literacy (Harmer & Alexander, 1978). Aim: To analyze the role of parenting styles in reading disabilities and in the incidence of psychopathology. Hypotheses: Parenting styles play an important role in children’s reading disabilities; childhood memories about parenting styles play an important role in reading/writing disabilities; parental styles and childhood memories about parenting styles play an important role in the incidence of psychopathology among children; the incidence of child psychopathology among reading disable children can be explained by the connection between parenting styles and reading disabilities. Method: 110 children (67M, 43F), aged between 7-11 years (M = 9.22, SD = 1.14) completed CPM (Raven, Raven & Court, 1947; Simões, 1995), EMBU-C (Castro, Toro, Arrindell & Van der Ende, 1993; Canavarro & Pereira, 2007a) and PROLEC-R (Cuetos, Rodriguez & Arribas, 2009; Figueira & Lopes, in press); 86 parents completed a Sociodemographic Questionnaire, EMBU-MI (Perris et al., 1980; Canavarro, 1999), EMBU-P (Castro et al., 1993; Canavarro & Pereira, 2007b) and CBCL (Achenbach, 1991; Fonseca et al., 1994). Results: Parenting styles do explain statistical variance of higher reading processes. Parenting styles and parents’ childhood memories concerning parenting styles revealed capacity to explain children’s psychopathology. The model composed by individual factors, family factors, parenting styles and reading disabilities showed an explanatory power about psychopathology. Conclusions: Parenting styles play an important role in higher reading processes as well as in the expression of psychopathology, namely among children with reading disabilities.

Tese de doutoramento, Psicologia (Psicologia Clínica), Universidade de Lisboa, Faculdade de Psicologia, 2015