Godfrey, Emma, Cleare, Anthony, Coddington, Alice et al. · Journal of psychosomatic research · 2009 · DOI
This study looked at whether parents of teenagers with ME/CFS have unrealistic expectations about their child's intellectual abilities compared to parents of healthy teenagers. Researchers tested the actual IQ of 28 teenagers with ME/CFS and 29 healthy teenagers, and also asked them and their parents what they thought their abilities were. They found that parents of teenagers with ME/CFS believed their children were more intelligent than they actually tested, more so than parents of healthy teenagers did.
This study highlights an important but often-overlooked psychosocial dimension of ME/CFS in adolescents: the mismatch between parental expectations and actual cognitive performance. Understanding these expectancy gaps is clinically relevant because unrealistic expectations from parents may contribute to inappropriate demands on sick adolescents, potentially affecting symptom management, school planning, and family dynamics during recovery.
This study does not prove that parental expectations cause cognitive problems or symptom worsening in ME/CFS; it only describes an association. It also does not establish whether the discrepancy reflects parental denial of cognitive change, preserved memories of pre-illness ability, or genuine cognitive impairment missed by the IQ test used. The cross-sectional design prevents determination of whether expectancy gaps emerge as a consequence of ME/CFS or exist independently.
About the PEM badge: “PEM required” means post-exertional malaise was an explicit required diagnostic criterion for participant inclusion in this study — not that PEM was studied, observed, or discussed. Studies using criteria that do not require PEM (e.g. Fukuda, Oxford) are tagged “PEM not required”. How the atlas works →
The first block is for the primary paper and is the citation you should use in research work. The atlas-snapshot line only applies if you are specifically referring to this atlas’s reading of the paper on the date shown.
Primary citation
Godfrey, Emma, Cleare, Anthony, Coddington, Alice, Roberts, Amanda, Weinman, John, & Chalder, Trudie (2009). Chronic fatigue syndrome in adolescents: do parental expectations of their child's intellectual ability match the child's ability?. Journal of psychosomatic research. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jpsychores.2009.02.004
BibTeX
@article{mecfsatlas-godfrey-2009-chronic-fatigue,
author = {Godfrey, Emma and Cleare, Anthony and Coddington, Alice and Roberts, Amanda and Weinman, John and Chalder, Trudie},
title = {Chronic fatigue syndrome in adolescents: do parental expectations of their child's intellectual ability match the child's ability?},
journal = {Journal of psychosomatic research},
year = {2009},
doi = {10.1016/j.jpsychores.2009.02.004},
note = {PubMed: 19616144},
url = {https://www.mecfsatlas.com/evidence/godfrey-2009-chronic-fatigue},
}Atlas snapshot reference
ME/CFS Atlas. Generator v1 / Scanner v1.4 / policy v0.1. Accessed 2026-05-30. https://www.mecfsatlas.com/evidence/godfrey-2009-chronic-fatigue
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