When fieldwork for the school phase commenced in autumn/winter 2013, the child’s current teacher was asked to complete a postal questionnaire about each Study Child; this was completed for over 92% of children. The majority of the children were in Senior Infants45 (69%) and the remaining 31% in Junior Infants. Teachers of both classes completed a number of subscales reflecting the child’s developmental and behavioural status; these subscales were hierarchically structured, with nine items reflecting increasingly advanced milestones. The first three items in each subscale are considered the core ‘stepping stones’ that form the basis for achieving later milestones (Hansen & Jones, 2008). Children who achieve the next five items are reaching appropriate learning goals for their age-group; those who achieve the final item are achieving more than is expected at this stage (Hansen & Jones, 2008). The items used are a subset of those used in the Millennium Cohort Study and are based on the Foundation Stage Profile in England46 (Hansen & Jones, 2008). In this section we examine two of those subscales: disposition/attitudes and language for communication and thinking.47
Table 6.1 provides the percentages of children who had achieved the three earliest milestones in each of these two subscales. Even though a priori expectations might have been that children in Senior Infants (i.e. second year of school) would have scored better on these items, this was not the case. There were only very small differences between Junior and Senior Infant class groups in this respect.
Table 6.1: Percentage of 5-year-olds achieving the first 3 milestones in a teacher-reported measure of ‘disposition/attitudes’ and ‘language for communication and thinking’, according to year in school Milestone Item Junior Infants % Senior Infants % Disposition/ Attitudes
Shows an interest in classroom activities through observations or participation
96 95
Dresses, undresses, and manages own personal hygiene with adult support
80 82
Displays high levels of involvement in self-chosen activities
94 92
Per cent achieving all three milestones 72 71
Language for communication and thinking
Listens and responds 93 93
Initiates communication with others, displaying greater confidence in more informal contexts
89 90
Talks activities through, reflecting on and modifying actions
77 74
Per cent achieving all three milestones 73 70
In the remainder of the analysis in this section, scores for Junior and Senior Infants were combined, although class level and child age were controlled for in the regression models later.
There were few, if any, significant differences in relation to achieving all three stepping stones on the ‘disposition/attitudes’ scale, although previously performing poorly in the ASQ communication measure (in particular) at nine months was associated with a lower likelihood (63% compared to 72%). On the ‘language for communicating and thinking’ scale, there were clearer socio-demographic trends. Male gender, lower income, lower parental education, lower social class, urban area and low birthweight were all associated with a reduced likelihood of attaining all three milestones on this language subscale. The
45 Senior Infants is Year 2 of primary schooling. Year 1 is known as Junior Infants.
46 In England, the Foundation Stage Profile is completed by teachers as part of formal assessment in the school system. In the Millennium Cohort Survey, comparable information for children in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland was collected through a questionnaire sent to teachers. The wording and format of the questionnaire items was replicated in Growing Up in Ireland.
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gaps by gender, income and parental education are illustrated in Figure 6.9. In addition, children who had scored below average48 on the ASQ personal-social measure (in particular) at nine months were less likely to have achieved these first three language milestones (64% compared to 73%).
Figure 6.9: Percentage of children reported by teachers to have attained all of the first 3 language milestones by gender, family income and Primary Caregiver’s education (lowest and highest featured for income and education)
The mean total scores on each subscale, both of which had a maximum score of 9, was 7.7 (SD 1.9) for disposition and 7.5 (SD 2.4) for language. Although no socio-demographic differences were apparent on the disposition subscale at the ‘stepping stone’ level, some did emerge when looking at the total score. Male gender, low birthweight, having lower income and lower PCG education were associated with lower scores. A similar pattern was observed for total scores on the language subscale, as shown in Figure 6.10. The differences shown in Figure 6.10 can be regarded as substantive. For example, the scale of the difference between the lowest and highest education groups and between the lowest and highest income groups is equivalent to a more disadvantaged child not being able to ‘speak clearly with confidence and control’.
Figure 6.10: Comparison of total teacher-reported scores on the language and disposition/attitudes subscales by gender, income, PCG education and birthweight
48 That is, below the threshold set by the test authors. 0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90% 100% % of 5-year-olds
Boys Girls Lowest Highest Junior Cert or
less Degree 69% 75% 61% 81% 60% 79%
Gender Income Quintile PCG Education
Subscale score 6.0 6.5 7.0 7.5 8.0 8.5 Boys Girls Lowest Highest
Junior Cert or less
Degree
Low
Normal Boys Girls Lowest Highest
Junior Cert or less
Degree Low Normal Gender Income Quintile PCG
Education weight Birth Gender Quintile Income Education PCG weight Birth Disposition Language 7.2 7.7 6.8 8.0 6.7 7.9 7.0 7.5 7.5 7.9 7.3 8.0 7.1 8.0 7.1 7.7
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6.5
COgNITIVE DEVELOpmENT
Cognitive development refers to the child’s skills in thinking, reasoning, perception, memory, attention and language. It is extremely important for the individual’s development and wellbeing in other domains as well as more specifically educational achievement and a range of later-life outcomes such as employment, income and health. Progress in brain development is at an accelerated rate in the early years of life; cognitive developmental status, as with other skills, reflects an accumulation of earlier experiences as well as current context.
A direct assessment of cognitive development was administered to children at age three years. Two subscales from the British Ability Scales (Elliott, Smith and McCullogh, 1996; 1997) were administered by interviewers in the course of the home-based interview. These scales have been used in other international child cohort studies to measure cognitive ability. The Naming Vocabulary and Picture Similarities subscales were used to derive a measure of children’s verbal and non-verbal ability. At three years of age, it was found that socio- economic gradients were already emerging in terms of cognitive development – particularly in relation to the vocabulary measure. Children from higher-income, better-educated households performed better. Girls were also outperforming boys.
At the five-year wave, a number of sources of information were used to assess children’s cognitive development:
• The Naming Vocabulary test from the British Ability Scales, an age-appropriate version of the test administered at the age of three
• The Picture Similarities test from the British Ability Scales, an age-appropriate version of the test administered at the age of three
• Teacher ratings of the child’s ability to link sounds and letters, based on the Millennium Cohort Study subscale
• Teacher ratings of the child’s reading ability, based on the Millennium Cohort Study subscale • Teacher ratings of the child’s number skills, based on the Millennium Cohort Study subscale
• Teacher ratings of how well the child is doing relative to the ‘average child’ in relation to different areas of the primary school curriculum
The measures used therefore capture children’s skills along a range of different dimensions.