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 Edinburghlesley.kelly@ed.ac.uk