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Date: April 29, 2024 Mon

Time: 11:32 pm

Results for emotional development

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Author: Chowdry, Haroon

Title: Disadvantage, Behaviour and Cognitive Outcomes: Longitudinal Analysis from Age 5 to 16

Summary: The importance of children's social and emotional skills for life outcomes is well established, as is the link between these skills and family income. The combination of both of these can serve to entrench the cycle of inter-generational disadvantage. Previous work has shown that poorer children exhibit more behavioural and emotional problems on average than their wealthier peers, and that this gap appears early in childhood; less is known about the reasons why this might be and how long it persists for. There is also limited evidence on what might drive the interplay between early behaviour and later cognitive skills such as literacy and numeracy. In this report we present findings from new research on the following questions: (1) What is the relationship between economic disadvantage and child behavioural and emotional problems? Our analysis shows that there is a higher prevalence of behavioural and emotional problems among disadvantaged children. We also find that this discrepancy can be fully accounted for by differences in maternal psychological well-being and parental education. This does not mean that economic disadvantage does not matter. However, it does suggest that it is factors associated with disadvantage, rather than economic disadvantage itself, that lead to the social gradient in child behavioural and emotional problems. Poor maternal psychological well-being explains around half of the socioeconomic disparity in behavioural and emotional problems. However, its association with these problems is only present in low- medium-income families, and the effect is strongest for children in poverty. This suggests that higher family income (or factors associated with it) may act as a protective factor against the risks from poor maternal psychological well-being, or that factors associated with poverty may amplify those risks. There is a lower incidence of behavioural and emotional problems in children with highly educated parents. It is likely that parental education is capturing a range of influences, such as the quality of parenting, of the home learning environment and of parent-child interactions. All of these factors may contribute to children's socio‐ emotional development and behaviour throughout childhood. (2) How do child behavioural and emotional problems influence later cognitive skills and attainment? Children with higher levels of behavioural and emotional problems at age 5 do less well, on average, in cognitive assessments - specifically, literacy and numeracy scores - at age 10 and age 16. This correlation remains, but to a lesser extent, after taking into account other individual and family factors that may contribute to this relationship. For example, parental education and maternal psychological well-being together explain half of the correlation between age 5 behavioural and emotional problems and age 10 cognitive skills. There is a statistically significant link between behavioural and emotional problems at age 5 and cognitive scores at age 16. However, this is fully explained when we control for cognitive scores and behavioural and emotional problems at age 10. In other words, after this is taken into account, there is no independent link between behavioural and emotional problems at age 5 and cognitive skills at age 16. One potential way to interpret this is that early childhood behavioural and emotional problems need not present a risk for future educational attainment if they can be turned around by age 10. Higher parental education is associated with higher cognitive scores, even after taking into account earlier cognitive scores and behaviours. This may reflect ongoing features of the home environment or parenting style that continue to influence children's learning and ability even into adolescence. Our findings highlight the interplay between cognitive and non‐cognitive outcomes, and the family-level factors that may contribute to these outcomes. Parental education and poor maternal well-being contribute to higher behavioural and emotional problems and lower cognitive scores, especially in early childhood. Behavioural and emotional problems at age 5 then contribute to behavioural and emotional problems and lower cognitive scores at age 10, which in turn contribute to lower cognitive scores at 16. As a result these factors can cast 'long shadows' into adolescence and early adulthood, if unaddressed through interventions or additional support.

Details: London: Early Prevention Foundation, 2017. 40p.

Source: Internet Resource: Accessed April 29, 2017 at: http://www.eif.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/disadvantage-behaviour-cognitive_Mar2017.pdf

Year: 2017

Country: United Kingdom

URL: http://www.eif.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/disadvantage-behaviour-cognitive_Mar2017.pdf

Shelf Number: 145200

Keywords:
Anti-Social Behavior
At-Risk Youth
Cognitive Skills
Delinquency Prevention
Disadvantaged Youth
Emotional Development
Socioeconomic Conditions