growing up in scotland: messages from research presentation to fife early years seminar joining the...
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Growing Up in Scotland:
Messages from researchPresentation to Fife Early Years Seminar
Joining the Dots in Fife
11th November 2011
Lesley Kelly
GUS Dissemination Officer
Centre for Research on Families and Relationships
University of Edinburgh
What is the Growing Up in Scotland study?
GUS: The A to Z of the Early Years
Accidents and injuries
Attachment
Behaviour
Child health
Diet
Childcare
Education
Family
Lone parents
Mental health
Neighbourhood
Obesity
Parental support
Parenting styles
Resilience
Social networksZoo visits!
Physical activity
What age are the children taking part?
10 m.
2
y
3
y
4
y
5
y
6
y
7
y
8
y
Child
Cohort
2005
X X x x
Birth
Cohort
2005
x x x x x x x
New Birth
Cohort
2011
x ? ? ?
Sources of information
School records
School records
Health records
Cognitive assessments
Main carer
GUS5
Health records
Child height & weight
Main carer
GUS6
Child height & weight
Child height & weight
Cognitive assessments
Health records
Main carer
GUS4
Health
records
Main carer
GUS3
Health records
Partner
Main carer
GUS2
Main carer
Health
records
GUS1
Research questions• Does the gap in cognitive
ability between children with different social backgrounds change between ages 3 and 5?
• Which factors help or hinder relative improvement in cognitive ability between the ages of 3 and 5?
Changes in child cognitive ability in the pre-school years
•Do the factors which influence improvements in cognitive ability during the pre-school period impact differently on children whose parents have different levels of educational qualifications?
2 simple exercises to measure knowledge of vocabulary and problem solving skill taken from the British Ability Scales Second Edition (BASII)
• Vocabulary (language development) – picture recognition
• Problem solving (non-verbal reasoning) – picture similarities
Measuring cognitive development
Sensitive periods in brain development
Vision
0 1 2 3 7654
High
Low
Years
Habitual ways of responding
Language
Emotional control
Conceptualization
Peer social skills
Number
Hearing
Source: Council for Early Child Development
“Pre-school” years
School years
Vocabulary ability at ages 3 and 5 by social background
-0.5-0.45 -0.43 -0.42
-0.56-0.62
0.27 0.28
0.16 0.180.23
0.27
-0.7-0.6
-0.5-0.4-0.3
-0.2-0.1
00.10.2
0.30.4
Sta
nd
ard
de
via
tion
s
Highest income group
Lowest income group
Highest SEC
Lowest SEC
Degree qualified
No qualifications
0 = population average
Age 3 Age 3 Age 3Age 5 Age 5 Age 5
Problem solving ability at ages 3 and 5 by social background
-0.45 -0.45-0.4
-0.2
-0.55-0.5
0.240.28
0.13 0.10.17 0.16
-0.6
-0.5
-0.4
-0.3
-0.2
-0.1
0
0.1
0.2
0.3
0.4
Sta
nd
ard
de
via
tion
s
Highest income group
Lowest income group
Highest SEC
Lowest SEC
Degree qualified
No qualifications
0 = population average
Age 3 Age 3 Age 3Age 5 Age 5 Age 5
Factors which help or hinder improvement in cognitive ability
What factors could impact on relative improvement?
• Demographic (e.g. gender, ethnicity)
• Family composition (e.g. lone parent/couple, no. of siblings)
• Parenting styles (e.g. attachment, discipline, home learning)
• Experience of childcare and pre-school (e.g. pre-school type)
• Child health and development (e.g. general health, birth weight)
• Parenting support (e.g. service use, ante-natal classes)
• Maternal physical and mental health (e.g. smoking, general health)
• Economic and material circumstances (e.g. area deprivation)
Factors significantly associated with change in cognitive ability(after controlling for parental education)
Cognitive ability
Knowledge of vocabulary Problem solving
• Level of rule-setting in household at age 5
• Level of infant-maternal attachment at 10 mths
• Language & communicative development at 22 mths
• Attendance at ante-natal classes
• Child was breastfed
• Frequency of home-learning activities at 2-3 years
• Type of pre-school attended
• Whether child had started primary school
• Child was breastfed
• Area deprivation
Factors associated with a relative improvement in ability for children from
lower educational backgrounds
Cognitive ability
Knowledge of vocabulary Problem solving
• Level of infant-maternal attachment at 10 mths
• Language & communicative development at 22 mths
• Child was breastfed
• Frequency of home-learning activities at 2-3 years
Summary of findings
• The gaps in cognitive ability by social background which exist at age 3 persist at age 5
• A range of factors which exist in children’s lives affect their cognitive development over and above the effect of parental education
• Changes in vocabulary ability are more related to aspects of the child’s home environment and the choices and behaviours of parents.
• Change in problem solving ability appear to be influenced more by external factors such as pre-school education – though home environment and parenting factors were also important
• What is important for children whose parents have fewer educational qualifications?
• Good early infant-maternal attachment, better early language ability, being breastfed as a baby, and having a rich home-learning environment.
Implications for services• Universal policies to improve school readiness will not benefit all
children equally.
• Important to support positive development from the very earliest stages of a child’s life - good early infant-maternal attachment and better early language development both had continuing positive effects on cognitive development.
• Pre-school and early primary school experiences can influence development but parenting and the home environment also play a key role.
• Strategies to improve school readiness amongst disadvantaged children will require an approach that provides high quality pre-school education AND seeks to influence the home environment – e.g. a mixed (centre and home-based), two generation (child and parents) approach
GUS is funded by the Scottish Government and is carried out by the Scottish Centre for Social Research (ScotCen) in collaboration with the Centre for Research on Families and Relationships (CRFR) at the University of Edinburgh and the MRC Social & Public Health Sciences Unit in Glasgow.
For more information about GUS and to download research findings, please visit: www.growingupinscotland.org.uk
Or contact:Lesley Kelly, GUS Dissemination OfficerCRFR, University of [email protected]