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Up to Age 7:
Family Background and Child Development
Up to Age 7 in the Avon Longitudinal Survey
of Parents and Children (ALSPAC)
Non-technical Summary
Up to Age 7:
Family Background and Child Development
Up to Age 7 in the Avon Longitudinal Survey
of Parents and Children (ALSPAC)
Non-technical Summary
The views expressed in this report are the authors and do not necessarily reflect those of the Department for Education and
Skills.
We would like to thank the Department for Education and Skills for financial support on this
project. We are extremely grateful to all the mothers who took part and to the midwives for their
cooperation and help in recruitment. The whole ALSPAC Study Team comprises interviewers,
computer technicians, laboratory technicians, clerical workers, research scientists, volunteers and
managers who continue to make the study possible. The ALSPAC could not have been undertaken
without the financial support of the Medical Research Council, the Wellcome Trust, UK
government departments, medical charities and others. The ALSPAC study is part of the WHO
initiated European Longitudinal Study of Pregnancy & Childhood. The CMPO research team on
this project is Simon Burgess, Paul Gregg, Emma Hall, Sara Meadows, Carol Propper, Stephen
Proud and Liz Washbrook. Usual disclaimers apply.
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Executive Summary and Conclusions
We use the rich information in the ALSPAC data set to identify child outcomes at age 5 and age 7,
their relationship with family background, and a set of mediating influences (details of our precise
methodology are given in section 3.2 of Part I of the main report). In summary, we begin by
examining the relationship between each of these groups of mediating influences and the two child
outcomes (educational and behavioural development) at age 5 in order to determine which factors
are significantly associated with the outcomes of interest. In this examination, our focus is on the
pathways by which parental education and income affect child outcomes on school entry.
However, we also explore whether age of mother at birth, numbers of siblings, ethnicity and lone
parenthood influence attainment and their relationship with our mediating factors. Having
established the patterns of association at age 5 for cognitive and behavioural outcomes, we then
examine (in Part 2 of the report) the persistence of the associations through the first two years of
schooling. In this part, we examine only cognitive outcomes. We aim to assess whether the first
two years of education in school changes the key influences on child development at age 7
compared with what these had been prior to school entry. In particular, we assess whether the early
learning deficits based on family background persist and the role played in these deficits by the
factors identified in Part 1 in this persistence. In addition to these factors, we also examine the
effect of the school attended by the child.
The Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children (ALSPAC) is a cohort study of around 13
000 children born in the Avon area of the UK in 1991 and 1992. Hence, the survey is after the bulk
of the large expansion of early return to work by mothers that occurred in the mid-late 1980s (see
Burgess et al. 2003) but before the guaranteed half day places at pre-school for four and most
recently 3 year olds. Mothers complete up to three surveys a year, one relating to the
characteristics of herself and the household in general and two relating to the child1. In addition,
mothers answered four questionnaires during their pregnancies. The ALSPAC survey also contains
data from sources other than self-completion questionnaires. The ALSPAC team have run a
number of clinics for children from the age of seven. Here the child attends an assessment centre
(with a parent or guardian) run by ALSPAC at which tests are undertaken to assess various aspects
1
The mothers partner also received annual questionnaires but the response here is patchy.
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of the childrens development. Records from schools can also be matched, with a parents
permission, to the individual child records, so data is available on school-based assessments at ages
4 to 5 and again for ages 6 to 7. By the time the children had reached age 7 just under 10,000 were
still actively engaged in the study. Attrition was not strongly related to mothers characteristics
except among never married lone parents who were disproportionately lost from the study.
The measure of behavioural problems is derived from mother-reported data at age 4. The measure
contains five sub-components relating to hyperactivity, emotional symptoms, conduct problems,
peer problems and a pro-social score (which is reversed as unlike for the other measures a higher
score is a positive outcome). The sample size for this measure is around 9500. More details of the
construction of the measures used and the ALSPAC study are contained in the main report.
Summary of Findings
Behaviour at age 5
Differences in the raw behaviour scores across children from families with different
levels of income and education are relatively small compared to those observed in cognitive
development. Children for the poorest fifth of families have Entry Assessment test scores some
7 points lower (equivalent to being 25 percentage points lower in the rankings of child
attainment) than those from the most affluent fifth of the population. Whereas for the behaviour
scores they are 5 points behind).
Mothers mental and physical health, especially stress, anxiety and self-esteem, and low
quality relationships between parents are strongly related to poor behavioural outcomes among
children. In turn these indicators of poor mental health and lack of belief that their own actions
can alter their circumstances, are strongly correlated with low income and low educational
attainment. Hence mothers mental health explains around 25 to 30% of the difference in
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behavioural scores between those from less or more affluent households or high or low parental
education.
Parental teaching and reading also have marked influences on later behavioural
outcomes (as for learning outcomes). But, in addition, parental behaviours including a lack of
early maternal bonding, smoking in pregnancy, talking to children whilst engaged in other
activities and the child watching 6+ hours of TV a week at 18 months are also associated with
worse behaviour.
Centre based care at or before age 2 is associated with worse behaviours relative to
parental carers or child minders. Long hours of care by unpaid carers, such as friends and
relatives are also associated with worse behaviour.
The raw differences in behaviour scores between the highest and lowest education and
income groups are around 5 points different (or a standard deviation) and explained mainly
by the correlations between parenting behaviour and mothers mental and physical health and
income or education. Parenting patterns are more important in driving the differences in
behavioural outcomes, between the most or least affluent children, than they are for early
educational attainment.
The adverse effect of poverty on childrens attainment has been established in a large
number of studies (see for example Duncan and Brooks-Gunn, 1997, Gregg and Machin,
2000).
Similarly, the positive relationship between parents and childrens educational attainment,
such that children of better educated parents achieve higher educational outcomes, has been
found to be robust in the literature (Feinstein et al, 2004).
The key importance of the childs home learning environment for cognitive development is
pointed to by a number of studies (Feinstein et al, 2004, Sylva et al, 2004).
Maternal mental health and depression has been shown to have a particular influence on
childrens behavioural development (Murray, 1992).
The positive effects on childrens development of pre-school attendance and having above
average attaining children attending the same pre-school have been documented across a
range of countries (see NICHD, 2002, Sylva et al, 2004). However, Sylva et al. findings
suggest more substantive and longer lasting effects especially for high quality care. We
were unable to address quality of care issues effectively in the study.
This research makes a substantive contribution to the understanding of the origins of early learning
differences in children and their persistence on entry into school. As these children age, ALSPAC
will continue to offer a unique method of tracking how early learning and behaviour are
transmitted through childhood and into adulthood and to assess how other influences come forward
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to mitigate or accentuate early differences. The data will also be able to track whether recent
government initiatives can alter this process, for instance the Literacy Hour programme, which
these children will have experienced after age 7 or programmes such as the Community Trust Fund
on anti-social behaviour.
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Introduction
This non-technical summary presents the findings of the research undertaken at the Centre for
Market and Public Organisation, University of Bristol, for the Department for Education and
Skills, on childrens cognitive development and behaviour up to entry into school and cognitive
development through the first two years of schooling. Part I of the technical findings covers
development up to school entry and Part II presents a complementary analysis of the persistence of
variations in early learning during the first two years of school. This non-technical report is thus a
summary of both Parts I and II of the more technical report.
The project uses the rich data from the Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children
(ALSPAC). ALSPAC is a longitudinal cohort study that includes families of all demographic
categories, from inner-city, suburban, seaside, rural and small town areas. To be eligible for the
study, mothers had to be resident in Avon during their pregnancy and have an expected date of
delivery from April 1991 to December 1992.
The research examines the relationship between family background especially parental income
and education - and child outcomes at age 5 and age 7. The prime motivation is to examine the role
of a set of proximal factors that mediate between family background and the outcomes considered.
These proximal influences cover parental interactions with the child, teaching and reading to the
child, home learning resources (e.g. books, toys, over-crowding etc), mothers mental and physical
health, any child care arrangements and the neighbourhood. Our study of outcomes at age 5
examines this issue looking at two measures of attainment, one cognitive and one behavioural. Our
study of outcomes at age 7 considers only continued cognitive development.
The study clarifies how different proximal factors in the childs early experience combine to
produce the gross differences in attainment and behaviour evident at the earliest stages of school.
Our focus is on the role of these proximal influences in transmitting family background, especially
parental education and family income, into child development.
The aim of this report is to present a summary of the findings in a non-technical way. We outline
the outcomes and the proximal factors we have examined and provide a summary of the strength
and direction of the association between the proximal factors and the outcomes. For further details
of the statistical analysis, readers are referred to the two technical reports.
The outline of this report is as follows. In the first section, we present relevant literature. In the
second we overview the data on which this study is based. In the third we present our findings for
child outcomes upto age 5. In the fourth section we present our findings for child outcomes at 7. In
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each of the results sections we study the proximal factors in groups, describing each group of
factors and the results for the group before moving on to report on the next set. At the end of each
section, we study the joint impact of all the factors. The final section provides a summary of our
approach and findings.
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Relevant Literature
From very early in their lives, children differ in their cognitive development and their behaviour.
These differences may be highly stable throughout their childhoods and contribute to the different
outcomes of their formal education and to their risk of social exclusion (e.g. Jencks et al 1972,
Hills, Le Grand and Piachaud 2002). Psychological and social theories about the sources of these
differences appeal to multiple different influences, some located in the child, some in the
immediate physical environment, some in the immediate social experience, some in the social and
cultural institutions of children's wider worlds (Bronfenbrenner 1979, Bronfenbrenner and Morris
1998, Meadows 2005). The possible factors that have been suggested include but are not limited to
genes, health, nutrition, family characteristics, environmental pollution, neighbourhood
composition and public policy. The most interesting factors for explaining fine-grained differences
between individual children are those which vary between families and impinge directly on
children in explainable ways. Such proximal factors for preschool development include children's
day to day experiences in their families and in family-like settings. There is extensive evidence
(Bloom 1998, Campbell 1995, David et al 2003, Luthar 1999, Meadows 1993, 1996) from
observation-based studies of small samples (e.g. Dunn, Gallaway and Richards 1994, Wells 1985),
from larger samples in the US (e.g. Bradley et al 1989, NICHD , 2000, 2002) and from both large
and small intervention studies (e.g. Ramey and Ramey 1998) of correlations between parent
behaviour and child characteristics which suggest that proximal variables such as quantity and
quality of parent-child interaction in the preschool years may be causally associated with both
better cognitive development and fewer behaviour problems at entry to school. Furthermore the
research base suggests that this causal link may be one of the mechanisms for the differences in
children's attainment and adjustment associated with distal variables such as social class, family
structure, and parental employment, or with genetic/biological influences (Meadows 2005).
However, the evidence is not sufficient to confirm this inference. Many of the studies that make up
the evidence base have focused on simple analyses of one input variable and one output measure,
consigning other variables to error. Other studies have used composite independent variables such
as attendance at a Head Start programme and have not been able to provide information on which
parts of the experience have been crucial. Because of the expense of collecting data, some studies
have used small and possibly unrepresentative samples. Furthermore, it is not unproblematic to
extrapolate sensibly from one society to another (Rogoff et al 2003). Correlations and effect sizes
are typically of only moderate size, thus although it was appropriate initially to use strategies such
as focusing on a severely limited range of factors or on limited samples to simplify otherwise
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intractable problems, and these studies have led to interesting results, they have been open to
criticism (e.g. Scarr 1992) for failure to separate confounded genetic, environmental and
interaction-based effects; failure to compare the influence of parents and of other carers, including
out-of-home care, or to acknowledge the effect of children on parents; failure to identify exactly
which parenting behaviours are affecting which child behaviours; and failure to compare different
causes within the same sample.
The literature on the role of childrens experience in their families on their cognitive development
and their behaviour involves two main conceptual levels. The first involves more or less permanent
characteristics of family background, such as adults social class, education level or intelligence, or
family structure, which are associated with different outcomes for the child. The second looks at
activities (and attitudes) of parents (and childrens other carers), which make them, moment by
moment, more or less effective supporters or inducers of their childrens learning.
There has been evidence for at least the last century that cognition or, more specifically,
educational achievement, is associated with family background. From at least Galtons hereditary
genius onwards, children with more middle-class backgrounds or more educated parents do better
throughout their educational careers, staying in education longer and having higher achievement at
most stages. They also tend to do somewhat better on IQ tests (though not during infancy (Slater
1995)), in particular contributing relatively few cases to the population of marginally subnormal
scorers, and to a lesser degree they also tend to do better on Piagetian tests. The socio-economic
status (SES) of the family is still a fairly good predictor of childrens academic achievement (Blake
1989, Bornstein and Bradley 2003, Bradley and Corwyn 2002, Duncan, Brooks-Gunn and
Klebanov 1994, Duyme, Dumaret and Tomkiewicz 1999, Hart and Risley 1995, Hoff 2003).
Social class differences like these have persisted despite the existence of a general rise in
achievement and intelligence and of mobility between social classes between generations, and
despite the belief in meritocracy and egalitarianism which characterizes countries like Britain and
the United States.
But social class, or socioeconomic status (SES), is not of itself a causal variable. It is an index
based on the occupation of the head of the family, and thus a guide to the familys income, the
parents education, and, less directly, to a wider set of social circumstances. The same point applies
to research on family structure. Social class or family structure research sometimes focuses on
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comparing people from different categories (with different social addresses (Bronfenbrenner
1979, 1986, Bronfenbrenner et al 1996, 1998, 2000) rather than on the intervening processes which
might explain how the address label comes to be associated with different developmental
outcomes. The results of such research are often open to several interpretations as they do little to
clarify causal pathways. It is not entirely clear how a variable like socio-economic status affects
childrens cognitive achievement, what sort of explanatory model is appropriate. The correlation
between SES and intelligence or educational achievement might reflect differences in innate
intelligence (Eysenck 1971): however adoption studies show that the average level of attainment
of adopted children resembles that of their adoptive family rather than that of their biological
parents (Meadows 2005), studies of the different SES risk of severe and mild mental retardation
(e.g. Broman et al 1987) show different causes and different involvement of family backgrounds,
and what promotes high cognitive attainment in children from low SES backgrounds appears to be
family interaction not genes (Kim-Cohen, Moffitt, Caspi and Taylor 2004). There might be SES
differences in childrens behaviour which differentially facilitates good performance on IQ tests
and in school; there might be different reactions by schools and other tests to children differing in
SES. There might be different opportunities available to the different social classes (for example
better-funded schools in wealthier areas), even in a social system which believes it is meritocratic
and open to all those who are talented. There might be differences in health and nutrition. These
possibilities are by no means mutually exclusive: indeed the different disadvantages of poverty
tend to co-occur (Evans 2004,). Whichever cause may apply, we surely need to look closely at the
moment by moment way the effect is brought about. Work which looks at more specific variables
than family background is needed if we are to address the question of why there is variation within
classes and other overtly similar backgrounds, and to elucidate causal chains.
If we are to look for explanations of differences in childrens cognitive development and behaviour
in their family interaction rather than their family background, the key variables will include
behaviour that is formally or informally educational and also behaviour which supports positive
emotional and social development (Meadows 1996, 2005). Among the important variables will be
the familys parent-child language use and parents efforts to support their childrens
cognition (e.g. Tizard and Hughes 1984, Wells 1985, Rice 1989, Crain- Snow et al. 1991,
Thoreson and Dale 1992, Lieven, Pine and Dresner Barnes 1992, Bates, Dale and Thal
1995, Hart and Risley 1995, Ochs and Schieffelin 1995, Snow 1995, Meadows 1996,
Bloom 1998, Huttenlocher 1998, Evans, Maxwell & Hart 1999, Hoff and Naigles 2002,
Senechal and LeFevre 2002, Williams and Rask 2003, Haney and Hill 2004, Johnson-
Glenberg and Chapman 2004).
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family cohesiveness, communication and shared meaning, which may be making important
contributions to children doing better than expected cognitively (e.g. Eisenberg and Mussen
1989, Heath 1983, Kaye 1984, Meins 1997, 1998, Hubbs-Tait et al 2002, Howe and Rinaldi
2004, Petrill and Deater-Deckard 2004,Thompson 2004)
After decades of controversy, there is now strong evidence of the effectiveness of special
educational programmes for children from disadvantaged families (e.g. Barnett 1995, Burchinal et
al 1997, Campbell et al 2001, Campbell and Ramey 1995, Campbell et al 2002, Fan and Chen
2001, Mosteller 1995, Ramey and Ramey 1998, Reynolds 1994, Reynolds et al 1996, Reynolds
and Temple 1998, Reynolds, Ou and Topitzee 2004). Two particularly well-documented projects,
the Abecedarian project (Ramey and Ramey 1998) and the Chicago Child-Parent Centers
(Reynolds, Ou and Topitzes 2004) show what the causal path between intervention and outcome
may be. There are three main possibilities: that the intervention improves childrens cognitive
abilities as measured in standardised tests and these improvements initiate a sequence of improved
performance on school tasks and tests which culminate in better school achievement; that the
intervention makes families more likely to support the childs cognitive development more
effectively; that participation in the programme makes the families seek out better schools for their
children and use the schools more effectively. The evidence from the major studies is that all these
things happen. Childrens cognition was boosted by their preschool experience and this plus
continuing family support and school support through the later part of their education lead to
higher rates of school completion. Program participation enhanced these little childrens cognition
and language and their readiness to cope with the demands of formal schooling; this led to higher
ratings from teachers, less likelihood of being retained in grade to repeat a year, and more
completion of high school. Programme involvement of mothers had a positive effect on both child
outcomes and mothers well-being. School support and family support as they grew older were the
major predictors of children avoiding involvement in crime and delinquency. The quality of
schooling after the intervention was crucial for the eventual outcome; the early intervention is not
so much an inoculation that can prevent failure all by itself so much as an early advantage which
can be built on to lead, eventually, to success, if school and family continue to support the child.
Parent activities which encourage development, in joint play or through providing appropriate
and varied materials and experiences, are relevant to cognitive achievement. The core is warm
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participation in socially and intellectually stimulating interactions, with adults showing reciprocity
with children, being responsive to them, and providing emotional support but also providing some
structured, directed experiences with encouragement and praise (Meins 1997, 1998, Hubbs-Tait et
al 2002, Petrill and Deater-Deckard 2004, Meadows 2005). Possibly the child participant in such
interaction derives an enhanced sense of being competent and effective as well as receiving good
cognitive opportunities and helpful interpretations and support from the adult; it is worth noting
that maternal intrusiveness, being very directive and controlling, is associated with the child doing
less well. There are quite consistent positive correlations between the amount of adultchild
interaction of this sort and the childs cognitive development, which remain even when maternal
IQ and educational level are partialled out in an attempt to control for passive genotype
environment interaction effects (Gottfried 1984, Luster and Dubow 1992) and when other
demographic variables are controlled (Gregg, Washbrook and Meadows 2004). It is not entirely
clear which components of the parents behaviour have direct effects, and which are mediated by
other factors, and the best balance of behaviour may vary from task to task and age to age (Hubbs-
Tait et al 2002), but it does seem to be the case that if the parent-child interaction is characterized
by positive emotional support, high cognitive stimulation and low parental intrusiveness the child
is likely to do well in terms of both cognition and confidence, while the reverse of this pattern is
associated with the child doing badly. Thompson (2004) sees parenting and the environment of the
home as the basis of individuals approaches to learning challenges and achievement. The relevant
literature for key proximal influences is discussed in more detail in their relevant sections.
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Data, Measures of child outcomes and background controls
The data
The study uses the database of the Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children (ALSPAC).
ALSPAC is a prospective longitudinal cohort study that includes families of all demographic
categories, from inner-city, suburban, seaside, rural and small town areas. To be eligible for the
study, mothers had to be resident in Avon during their pregnancy and have an expected date of
delivery between 1st April 1991 and 31st December 1992. The core ALSPAC sample consists of
14541 pregnancies. 13988 infants were alive at 1 year and around 12,500 have reported some post
birth information; this is the baseline figure for these analyses.
As the children were born in 1991 and 1992, the survey is after the bulk of the major expansion of
early return to work by mothers that occurred in the mid-late 1980s (see Gregg et al. 2003) but
before the guaranteed half day places at pre-school for four and most recently 3 year olds. Few of
the children will have experienced the Literacy or Numeracy hours by age 7 but will have done
since. Mothers complete up to three surveys a year, one relating to the characteristics of herself and
the household in general and two relating to the child2. In addition, mothers answered four
questionnaires during their pregnancies. The ALSPAC survey also contains data from sources
other than self-completion questionnaires. The ALSPAC team have run a number of clinics for
children from the age of seven. Here the child attends an assessment centre (with a parent or
guardian) run by ALSPAC at which tests are undertaken to assess various aspects of the childrens
development. Records from schools can also be matched, with a parents permission, to the
individual children, so data is available on school-based assessments at ages 4 to 5 and again for
ages 6 to 7.
Cognitive attainment
The two school-based measures of cognitive development available in ALSPAC are the Entry
Assessment (EA) test taken at age 4 or 5 and the Key Stage 1 (KS1) assessment, which is
administered in Year 2 at age 6 or 7. Each test is composed of four subscores that capture ability
in reading, writing, mathematics and language skills (EA only) or spelling (KS1 only). Our third
assessment of cognitive ability was administered, by the ALSPAC team, to children at the age of 7.
This ALSPAC literacy score is again composed of a number of subscores, in this case capturing
2
The mothers partner also received annual questionnaires but the response here is patchy.
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skills in reading, spelling and the manipulation of words. This ALSPAC test was administered with
other child assessment under a heading of Focus at 7. From here on we describe the ALSPAC test
as the Focus at 7 test.
To combine the subscores for each measure into one overall score we used factor analysis. This
method allows the data to dictate the relative weights attached to each component and so to distil
the maximum possible information into a single measure. Each of the three resulting scores were
then normalised to have a mean of 100 and a standard deviation of 10. As is inevitable in a survey
of the scale of ALSPAC, attrition results in smaller sample sizes for the later assessments of child
development. So by age 5 there were around 9500 usable cases. In addition to this problem, parents
were required to give written permission for the release of the school-based test results. The
sample sizes for the Entry Assessment and Key Stage 1 scores are therefore substantially smaller
than for the other measures. Some 6030 children (just under two thirds) have permissions for
matching of school results. The EA score was not then a national test and so those schools not
operating this test, mainly outside the Avon area, do not have these scores. These restrictions on
data mean that our working sample on the EA test scores is just 4,607. The data available at age 7
is far less restrictive.
The small sample sizes raise the question of whether there is major variation in the characteristics
of the population reporting an EA score and those that dont as a result of attrition and giving of
permission to match to the ALSPAC data. We investigated this issue for a range of observable
characteristics such as household income, mothers age and educational attainment, etc and
concluded that there is little variation in the composition of each sample. The only clear sample
composition difference is an under-representation of lone parents in the ALSPAC sample. This is
substantive among never partnered lone parents and those becoming lone parents within the first
year or so of the childs life. Hence there appears to be no substantive attrition bias in the sample
composition as measured on observable characteristics for couple families but there may well be
unobservable differences. However, there are clearly too few lone parents and especially never
married lone parents and so our results for lone parents need to be interpreted with caution. We
have chosen not to re-weight the data to raise the size of lone parent population, as those remaining
may be unrepresentative.
Table 1 shows the pairwise correlations between the EA score, and two other measures of
cognitive attainment the KS1 score, and the Focus at 7 test, an ALSPAC administered literacy
score taken at 7 years.
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Table1: Pairwise correlations between entry assessment, KS1 and Focus at 7, all age
adjusted.
Average
Entry
KS1 Focus @ 7 KS1 F @
Assessment
7 score
Entry
1.0000
Assessment
KS1 0.5523 1.0000
F@7 0.4389 0.8366 1.0000
Average KS1- F
0.5105 0.9482 0.9430 1.0000
@ 7 score
Max. sample
4, 996 6,030 7, 329 7, 537
size
The EA test is moderately strongly correlated with test scores at age 6 or 7. In particular there is a
very high correlation with the KS1 score, which is also a school-based assessment. The school
based KS1 and the Focus at 7 literacy test have a very high correlation of 0.84, which suggests
these can be considered as two alternative estimates of cognitive attainment with some
measurement error. So at age 7 we create a combined score from the two measures which allows
us to create a measure with less measurement error where we have both measures and a larger
sample if we include all observations where ability is measured at least once. Hence the EA test is
a reasonably strong predictor of later attainment but there are clearly substantial differences
between EA and the ALSPAC literacy and KS1 tests unlikely to be accounted for by the time gap
of the tests, which is only around two years. This suggests that the EA test seems to contain far
more measurement error than the later tests. This may reflect far greater teacher discretion in
scoring children than in the national KS1 tests and the clinic based assessment, Focus at 7. There is
evidence in the data of schools scoring pupils consistently higher or lower in the EA tests than in
the KS1 tests. As the KS1 and Focus at 7 scores match well, this suggests strongly that there are
systematic reporting differences at school level in the EA scores. Such reporting errors will not
bias the results presented unless they are systematically related to pupil characteristics.
Behavioural attainment at 5
Our measure of behavioural problems is derived from mother-reported data at age 4. This
behaviour measure was undertaken through postal questionnaire sent to the mother and has a much
larger sample size of 9416. As the reports are mother reported there is some question over the
accuracy of reporting and whether it may be influenced by the mothers mental (e.g. stress) and
physical health. The measure contains five components scores relating to hyperactivity,
emotional symptoms, conduct problems, peer problems and a pro-social score (which is reversed
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as a score is positive unlike for the other behavioural measures). The behavioural problems
measure is the opposite sign to the cognitive measures as higher scores indicate more behavioural
problems. As this early measure of mother reported behaviour might lead to biases or inaccuracies
in the information reported, there is also a later measure of behaviour reported by teachers at age 7.
This is available for a much restricted sub-sample of around 3,300 cases. The correlation between
these two measures is quite low and also it is less well correlated with the attainment measures. So
it would appear that there is probably a lot of reporting error. We explore whether this leads to
systematic biases by exploring the relationships between the age 5 measure and behaviour
measured at 7 by teachers, on a common sample. The results are fairly similar for most of the
variables considered in our analysis (although the smaller sample often leads to statistically
insignificant estimates). However, the results for the mothers self-esteem score differ significantly
and so some caution about this particular measure needs to be exercised
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Results I: Cognitive and Behavioural Outcomes at Age 5
Methodology
The ALSPAC database offers an opportunity to look at the relationship between parenting
behaviours and child outcomes beyond the parent input-child output model. Its extensive data on
household demographic characteristics and parent characteristics allow us to examine the effect of
parenting behaviour in the context of other more distal variables that would be expected to affect
the child's development. For example, parents' educational level has long been known to be a
predictor of children's educational outcomes but, if the former is causing the latter, the mechanism
could be through genetic transmission of aptitudes essential for educational achievement, or
through the provision of better or worse educational opportunities in the school years, or through
differences in parents' behaviour with children in the home. The ALSPAC data offers a similar
advantage relating to child characteristics, which may have a direct effect on development or an
indirect one through their evoking of different behaviour from the parent. For example, the gender
difference in educational achievement in the early stages of schooling could reflect some inherent
earlier maturity of girls or differences in their earlier interaction with significant adults. The
presence in the database of multiple measures of child development allows for examination of
simultaneous effects; for example whether the effects of a particular parenting behaviour are as
positive for behaviour as for cognition, and whether the timing of an experience is important.
These issues are theoretically important, but also are especially important for policy and
interventions as effects may be bigger for some subgroups of children than for others, or may have
costs as well as benefits, or may need to be carefully timed.
Our aim is to explore the relationship between inherent parenting behaviours and the home
environment and child outcomes, both cognitive and behavioural, at age 4 to 5. We then examine
whether patterns of early development are maintained in the early school years (examining only
cognitive development).
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Are certain sub-populations of parents more effective when employing specific patterns
of proximal variables (e.g. is reading and teaching by better educated parents more
effective?)
Do the observed differences in parenting behaviours, home environment and outside
home environment substantially explain the widely observed correlations between
income and parental education and child development?
The aim is to identify those proximal variables which have independent and significant effects on
childrens development. This group of variables can then be used in the analysis of the effects of
other factors as an effective control for the childs home environment. For example, we can then
explore the relationships between family income, childcare arrangements and parenting, and the
relative importance of each. Our empirical strategy is to employ regression analyses. For ease of
discussion and interpretation we group related proximal influences under six headings Parenting
Behaviour and the Home Environment, Maternal Employment, Childcare, Maternal Health,
Social Support and Background, Neighbourhood and Peer Groups.
Our first step is to explore the correlations of each proximal measure with the child outcome
separately taking account of family background factors that may have a causal influence on both
the outcome and the proximal variable. For example, income is likely to be related to child
development and mothers mental health, so we explore the importance of mothers mental health
conditional on income levels. The main purpose of this is to explore whether there is any evidence
at all that the particular parenting behaviour has any impact on child outcomes independent of
other factors. If not, then that measure is dropped from all further analyses. We do this operation
for our six blocks but unlike some pathways analyses, we do not combine the groupings into single
indices (usually done through factor analysis) as we wish to be able to explore the contribution of
each component separately as well, rather than just being able to talk about the impact of the whole
group.
Rather than using continuous measures of parenting in our estimation, we divide each measure into
discrete categories and create dummy variables to indicate into which category the parent falls.
This is because:
It allows us to create a separate category for missing observations, rather than imputing values
The raw values of the parenting scores vary across measures and are difficult to interpret. The
use of discrete categories allows comparisons based only on the relative positions of
24
households in the distribution (for example, we can examine the effect of a move from the
lowest to the highest quartile).
It allows for non-linearities in the relationship between parenting behaviours and child
outcomes. For instance, not reading to a child at all may be far more important than the
difference between reading 4 and 5 times a week.
To determine where boundaries between categories should be drawn we minimised the number of
categories without losing explanatory power, and maintained the same boundaries for use in both
the Cognitive and Behavioural regressions. This method allows us to overcome the fact that the
distribution of some parenting measures is highly skewed and so they do not lend themselves to
division into equal quantiles (for example, the observed range of the maternal teaching score is
from 10 to 30 points, but 22% of observations score the maximum of 30 points and 40% score 29
or above).
The next step in the analysis is to introduce all relevant parenting measures into the regression
simultaneously. As many of the measures are highly correlated, this step allows us to observe how
the estimated effect of each behaviour changes when all the other behaviours are controlled for.
Measures that give no additional explanatory power (i.e. that are insignificant) can be tested jointly
and dropped from the model. The results of the final specification then show us the magnitude and
relative importance of different types of parenting activity on child outcomes, and, when taken
together, provide a concise measure of parental behaviour that can be used as a control in further
analyses.
The following gives a brief description of each of the parenting measures used in our analysis. The
measures used are grouped into those directly involving parental choices and those where other
25
dimensions of the family background may constrain the choices available. These constraints may
reflect lack of income or housing quality. The divide is not always clear-cut and this is, in part,
why we discuss and analyse these parts simultaneously. Further details are given in Appendices,
contained at the end of main report, on the scoring system used to construct each variable
(Appendix A1), the distribution of the measures and the ways the scores were grouped to construct
discrete variables (Appendix A2) .
Parenting
Parental reading scores
The aim was to create some measure of how frequently the child was read to by a parent during the
pre-school period as a whole. The mother was asked at regular intervals how frequently she, and
also her partner, read to the child or showed him/her pictures in books. At each age observed an
intensity of reading score is created ranging from zero to four, and then a total maternal reading
score is derived by summing the points for each response across the four questionnaires. This total
score ranges from zero to fifteen. If any elements are missing then the total maternal reading score
is missing. Then we explored which parts of the distribution of this score were associated with
clear differences in attainment and chose four categories that gave the best fit. The very low and
low intensity of reading scores each cover a little under a tenth of the observed population, the
medium category around a quarter, leaving the high covering over half of the population. This
was because of large bunching of results with scores at 13 or above where no material difference in
the correlation with outcomes could be distinguished.
A problem arises in deriving the paternal reading score as, in this case, we do not want the effects
of differential reading behaviours to be confounded with family structure; low paternal reading
scores may result from paternal absence as well as from low reading involvement. To overcome
this problem, the paternal reading score is only used for households in which a partner was present
throughout the pre-school period (i.e. the mother responded that she had a current partner in all of
the 8, 21, 33 and 47 month questionnaires). Households with any record of lone parenthood (or
missing information) are placed in a separate category. Hence our results relate to the effect of
differences in partners reading behaviour within intact families only and the effects of paternal
absence are examined elsewhere.
Television scores
There are questions regarding the childs television watching habits at regular intervals in
ALSPAC but the questions asked are not consistent across questionnaires. For this reason we are
not able to construct a composite television score for the whole preschool period. Rather, we look
at two different measures, one early (18 months) and one later (38 months). The early measure
relates to how often the mother has the television on at different times of the day. The later
measure relates to how many hours a day the child typically watches television on weekdays and at
weekends.
Breastfed baby
Mothers were asked both when the child was 6 months and again when they were 15 months about
the duration of the mothers breastfeeding. The results have been grouped into never, less than 6
months and more than 6 months.
Smoked in pregnancy
Questions were asked about the mother smoking during her pregnancy at various points of the
pregnancy and soon afterwards. This information was used to derive a simple dummy variable of
whether the mother did smoke or not.
Types of discipline
When the child was 42 months old, ALSPAC asked the mother questions on various forms of
discipline. In order to use the answers to these questions for our analysis, the forms of discipline
27
are divided into whether they were used at least once a week or less than once a week. By keeping
the forms of discipline separate rather than trying to aggregate them in some way, it is then
possible to observe whether some forms of discipline are more detrimental than others, for
instance, whether smacking a naughty child is more harmful in respect to their development than
simply ignoring them.
Our second method is to construct a composite score of total outings over the two-year period. This
method treats all type of outings identically and makes no distinction between the different places
the child might visit. This composite score is simply the sum of the eight individual place-specific
scores. In order to incorporate the place-specific outings scores into our analysis, each one was
split into two categories high (above the mean) and low (below the mean).
Grouped together with the place-specific outings scores, due to its obvious association with
outings, is whether the household owns a car. This was asked when the child was 33 months and is
included in the analysis as a dummy variable. Missing results are recorded separately as missing.
Book score
This score is designed to capture how many books the child has throughout the preschool period.
Questions on the number of books the child owns are asked at 6, 18, 24, 30 and 42 months. The
total book score is simply the sum of these scores.
28
Crowding index
This index is created by dividing the number of people in the home by the number of rooms in the
house. Questions regarding the number of people and the number of rooms were asked in the same
questionnaire, given when the child was 42 months old.
Damp/condensation/mould
Mothers were asked during the 33 month questionnaire how much a problem damp, condensation
and mould was in the house.
29
Table 2. Summary of associations between Parental Behaviours and the Home Learning
Environment and Child Development Outcomes
Has independent effect on cognitive Has independent effect on behaviour
attainment development
Mothers teaching score Strong positive Modest positive correlation
Reading Modest positive correlation insignificant
toy score Modest positive correlation Strong positive
talking whilst engaged in Modest positive correlation Strong positive
housework.
Breastfeeding for 6 months Moderate positive insignificant
number of books Moderate positive Modest positive correlation
toys in the house Moderate positive
trips to the library Moderate positive Moderate positive
amount of TV watched, especially at Moderate negative Modest negative
18 months,
trips to the department stores Moderate negative
outings to places of interest or Modest positive correlation Strong positive
entertainment, friends, the park
Good maternal bonding, positive insignificant Strong positive
feelings towards motherhood
types of discipline used insignificant Strong negative
smoking during pregnancy insignificant Strong negative
housing conditions insignificant Strong negative
Note: A modest effect equates to a n effect of up to 1/10 of a standard deviation, a moderate effect to between 1/10 and 2/10 of a standard
deviation and a Large effect to above 2/10 of a standard deviation.
Maternal Employment
We next looked at whether the timing of mothers decision to return to work makes any difference
to childrens cognitive and behavioural development. This topic has been the subject of more
substantive analysis (Gregg et al. 2003) and is therefore dealt with briefly here. There is evidence
(mainly from the US) suggesting that early maternal employment can hinder childrens
development (Waldfogel et. al., 2002, and Ruhm, in press). We (Gregg et al. 2003) used the
ALSPAC data being used here and our results suggest that full-time employment in the first 18
months after birth has small adverse effects on attainment measured by tests at age 7, but these
studies were unable to detect these effects in the EA data being used in this study or in the
behaviour measure. It appears that these adverse effects are restricted to a small minority of
families where informal care by friends and relatives is used for long hours rather than
childminders or nursery centres (see also Joshi and Verropoulu 2000)
30
and then unpaid maternity leave periods, which applied at the time of the ALSPAC cohort, expire
(see Burgess et al. 2002 for a detailed analysis of mothers return dates). Virtually all full-time
returns are in this window, with less than 2% of the sample returning to full-time work between 18
and 47 months. However, there are substantial numbers of part-time returners between 7 and 18
months.
Thus, maternal employment in the early months and years after a birth is not found to be a
predictor of the EA test scores on arriving at school at age 4 to 5 or of mother-reported behaviour
31
scores once other background characteristics are conditioned. We thus do not pursue this line of
study further. Early work contained in Gregg et al. (2003) suggests that there is evidence of
adverse effects observable at age 7 in the KS1 and the Focus at 7 ALSPAC administered tests. This
shows adverse cognitive and behavioural effects associated with full-time work before 18 months
and reliance of unpaid care by friends or relatives for more than 20 hours a week (typically for 35
hours or more). There are almost no mothers who have their child looked after in this way and who
do not work full-time. So long hours of unpaid care is a subset of mothers working full-time. So
from here on when we discuss long-hours of unpaid care rather than maternal employment per se.
Childcare
This section describes the pattern of childcare usage amongst the ALSPAC sample, and examines
the impact of childcare, controlling only for our standard set of controls, on cognitive and
behavioural outcomes at ages 4 to 5. There are two sources of childcare information available; the
first is taken from mothers questionnaires at 8 weeks, 8 months, 15 months and 24 months. This
asked the mother if a particular type of childcare was used and for the number of hours it was used
for. From this we construct measures of whether each type of care was used more that 20 hours a
week at any date up to and just beyond the childs second birthday (see Appendix 1 childcare
section for more details). The survey at 24 months falls just after the second birthday, and as
mothers will answer the questions with a delay of 1 to 2 months, the data covers the two to three
month period after the second birthday.
As part of the Focus at 7 interviews the mother reported retrospectively the names and broad type
of all centre based pre-school providers used. This is the second source of information on pre-
school childcare. Periods of use and number of day sessions attended were also detailed. From
this we can identify the type of the last pre-school attended prior to school entry and how many
sessions attended. In some cases more than one was attended simultaneously in which case both
are recorded. Hence the groups are not mutually exclusive. As the individual provider is identified
and we have a large proportion of children within this age range in the Avon study, many children
will attend the same provider. This allows us to observe members of the childs peer group at the
provider and this is explored in the section on neighbourhoods and peer groups later.
32
question refers to any care, which replaces that of the mother, not just care for when the mother is
at work.
Figures given are the percentage of the total working sample in each cell (i.e., the sample with at least one outcome measure Entry Assessment or
Behaviour excluding observations where data on usage of that type of care is missing).
The most common source of childcare is the partner (around of the sample have partners
supplying care), followed by friends and relatives (around half the sample). Apart from very short
hours around three quarters of this care is provided by grandparents. Paid care is used by around
30% of the sample, either in the form of a person (child minder or nanny 80% of this group have
child minders for above 5 hours of care) or, less commonly, centre based (only 8.5% of the
sample). Note that this reflects answers at four ages up to around 26 months and so the use of
centre based care at any point in time is very low, especially for more than 20 hours per week. So
pre-2, centre based care is very rarely used for long hours, probably because the cost is very high.
The table also reports childcare use from the 24 month survey broken down by employment status
of the mother at 21 months. This gives a clearer picture of variations in usage for working mothers
and across hours of work. It shows that partners do more when the mother works with higher
involvement of at least 5 hours but where the mother works full-time partners involvement for
over 20 hours is far more extensive. Increased use of childminders/nannies for 20+ hours (35% as
opposed to just 9% on average) is also much more marked where the mother works full-time.
33
Whilst long hours of care in centres or by friends and relatives also rise with full-time working the
steps are much less marked.
Post age-3 the use of centre-based care rises considerably with virtually all parents using some
form of centre based care between the ages of 3 and 5. Table 4 shows the types of pre-school
providers used most recently prior to entry in school. The categories used are reported by the
mothers and are thus subject to some interpretation, but Nursery class is thought to refer to a class
attached to a school, whilst the LEA nursery probably covers both day nurseries historically
provided by social services and LEA provided nursery schools. We are unable to distinguish
between these two very different alternatives with any certainty. As well as private day nurseries
there is an unspecified residual nursery category where the parent could not be more specific. The
small other group covers, we think, special needs centres and any other circumstance where
mother was unable to match the available categories.
Nurseries are widely used but a sizeable proportion of mothers were unable to describe the type of
nursery used (whether it was a dedicated public or private nursery). Over 45% of children were
using a dedicated Nursery (including the unspecified group) and this rises to around 60% if
Nursery classes within schools are added3. Playgroups were also widely used with 63% using
Playgroups at all but only 39% used Playgroups without also using Nursery care as well (see Table
5).
Nursery classes are mainly used for 3-5 sessions per week, especially school-based nurseries. The
use made of playgroups is more limited than that of nurseries. Very few families use more than 3-5
sessions per week at a playgroup, but of the mothers who use the alternative types of nurseries
around 20% use over 5 sessions per week. Mothers also combine the use of different centre based
care.
3
This will have increased markedly more recently as the government now offers a free day place for all three and
four year olds.
34
Table 4: Centre-based care prior to school entry
Figures given are the percentage of the total working sample in each cell (i.e., the sample with at least one outcome measure Entry Assessment or
Behaviour excluding observations where data on usage of that type of care is missing).
35
Table 6: Early years Childcare Arrangements and Centre-based child care usage post-age 3
(Entry Assessment)
The EA scores are positively associated with care from a partner (provided it is for less than 20
hours a week). In contrast, having care from a friend or relative for over 20 hours per week has a
significant negative impact on outcome. As we are not yet conditioning on other childcare usage
and other related factors these are not necessarily causal relationships. Already there is no strong
evidence that early (pre-2) use of centre based care is beneficial to childrens cognitive
development.
Not all types of centre base care prior to school entry are associated with positive outcomes.
Attendance at what mothers report as LEA nurseries has a negative effect on outcomes as does
attendance (particularly long attendance) at the undefined other category of centre care. The LEA
nursery effect may reflect that many children in these nurseries will be there at the
recommendation of social services. The other category includes special referral units and the
coefficients will reflect that. When we also explore the information contained in peer groups
attending the same providers these possible explanations will be more clearly addressed.
Attendance at nurseries (private or other), in contrast, is associated with positive outcomes. Only
for private nurseries did outcomes rise monotonically with number of sessions and even here a
restriction to just a single term, used or not used, is not rejected by the data. This suggests that for
36
nursery settings positive attainment outcomes are as pronounced for part-time as full-time
attendance.
Focusing on behavioural outcomes rather cognitive produces a rather different pattern of results.
The impact of care by partners is still beneficial and the effect of care by a friend or relative still on
balance adverse. The effect of centre care is now that short hours of centre care are associated with
worse outcomes. This is not the case for long hours but note the small sample that has long hours
of centre based care. The explanatory power of the behavioural regression is very low (in contrast
to the regression for EA). The negative effects of LEA nursery and other care on cognitive
outcomes are also present for behavioural outcomes, and for LEA nurseries the negative effect is
increasing in usage. On average, other forms of Nursery centre-based care have no effect on
behaviour. In contrast with care at pre-2, it appears that private nurseries are associated with no
harmful effects on behavioural outcomes and preliminary evidence of beneficial cognitive effects,
whilst LEA nursery attendance is associated with negative outcomes on both measures. We will
explore to what extent these reflect selection of client groups later.
We also examined whether parental education interacts with the type of childcare used: in other
words, do better-educated parents translate a given type of care into better outcomes? There are a
number of studies suggesting that high quality childcare is especially beneficial to those from
deprived backgrounds (see Ramey and Ramey, 1998, for example). However, in our analysis we
found no clear pattern of outcomes for different care types used as the educational group of the
parent increases. So parental education determines which kind of childcare is chosen and this has
an impact on child outcomes. But, conditional on a particular type of care being used and a general
term reflecting parental education, better-educated parents do not get better outcomes through
childcare for their children.
There is a danger that a problem child can lead to adverse reported mental health outcomes for the
mother because of stress etc. Hence we use data from the pregnancy period or immediately post-
birth to capture a picture of the mothers mental health before the childs behaviour is likely to
have had an influence on the measured score. For example, our results show that no matter when
mental health is measured, there is a very strong association between poorer mental health and
poorer child behaviour. There is also an indication that the closer in time the mother experiences
poor mental health to her child being age 5, the stronger the association with poor behaviour. In
summary, it appears that there is a very strong association between poor mental health of the
mother whenever experienced during the first three years of the childs life - and childrens
behaviour problems. But as there is a risk of reverse causality which is greater when mental health
is measured close to age 5, we utilise earlier timed data.
Higher risks of childhood deprivation (local authority housing during childhood and low education
of parents) are associated with each other (and with mothers own education) but are not
particularly closely associated with the measures of mothers health. The various dimensions of the
mothers health are associated, both from the mothers childhood to her adulthood and during the
post pregnancy period. The experience of adverse events during childhood and finding them
difficult to cope with (the weighted life events score) is linked to later experience of poor mental
health (the CCEI score). Post pregnancy poor mental health, feelings of lack of control, and low
self-esteem are closely associated with each other, and in turn, this set of variables are closely
associated with poor social networks. Whilst poor physical health is not closely associated with
low financial resources during childhood, it is reasonably closely associated with having poorer
social support and is strongly associated with poorer mental health. Experiencing cruelty from a
partner is associated with experiencing adverse events during childhood, having poorer physical
health, lower social support and poorer mental health. In sum, the data shows a picture in which
individuals who experience poor post pregnancy mental health are more likely to have experienced
adverse events during their childhood, to have poorer social networks, to have poorer physical
38
health and to experience cruelty from their partners. These events are also associated with both a
lower household income and single parenthood during the study childs life.
Table 7 also provides details of the relationship between individual maternal health and her childs
behaviour. The table shows strong association between mothers health and child behaviour
problems. Mothers with more settled childhoods with fewer adverse events in their own
childhood, with better relationships with their mothers, from more stable household, with little
experience of truancy and who felt school was valuable - are more likely to have children with
fewer behavioural problems. Similarly, mothers in better mental and physical health have children
with fewer behavioural problems. These correlations are very substantial. Mothers who have better
social networks have children with fewer behavioural problems. Finally, mothers who are more
satisfied with their relationship have children with fewer behavioural problems.
A child with a mother in very poor health or in the highest quintile of the CCEI score or in the
highest quintile of low self esteem is on average likely to have a behavioural score substantially
higher (that is, worse) than a child whose mother is in very good health and has the lowest CCEI
score and the highest level of self esteem. A combination of all three would move the child almost
a whole standard deviation. These are very substantial effects. However, these data on mental
health and on childrens problems are both mother reported and whilst we looked at teacher
reported data for a sub-sample at age 7 and found similar patterns, there is evidence of a lot of
measurement error in these reports. In addition the mothers self-esteem score did not appear as an
39
important predictor of age 7 teacher reported scores; this raises the prospect that the mother is
reporting with bias where she has low self-esteem.
Table 7 Associations between maternal background and mental and physical health with
educational and behavioural outcomes at age 4 to 5.
40
Neighbourhood effects
Children do not grow up in isolation within the home but interact with other people and especially
with the children they share facilities with. For the young children we are considering in the
present study, this is particularly likely to be important when the child is in extended contact with
children whilst at a pre-school. The other children a child interacts with are often described as their
peer group. It is hard to distinguish the extent to which a child is influenced by their
neighbourhood or peer group from whether it reflects some (unobserved) aspect of their parents
who have chosen neighbourhoods or a particular pre-school provider. Some findings are available
from quasi-experimental studies in the US (see Katz, Kling and Leibman 2001, Ludwig, Duncan
and Hirschfield, 2001 and Ludwig, Ladd and Duncan, 2001). These studies provide crucial
evidence of how neighbourhoods and peer groups might influence childrens educational outcomes
as moving to a better neighbourhood occurs for reasons that are unrelated to the characteristics of
the family. Importantly, these moves were not associated with increases in employment or earnings
among adults, so the effects observed are operating purely through neighbourhood change. The
results suggest that moving out of a deprived neighbourhood into a more prosperous one (which
goes hand-in-hand with changing school and peer group for most children) are associated with
marked improvements in behavioural problems and school test scores and, for school age children,
a reduction in the number of arrests for violent crime. The children being assessed under these
experiments are aged from 5 to 15 and hence may not reflect the effects of neighbourhood on pre-
school children but they do provide powerful evidence of such effects for older children.
As ALSPAC is drawn from the former area of Avon, most children are growing up in the same
neighbourhoods within that area and indeed many are attending the same schools and pre-schools.
We can thus merge information on the neighbourhoods the children live in and look at the
characteristics of many of the children the child shares pre-school facilities with.
Second, as part of the Focus at 7 face to face interviews with mother and child, the mother was
asked to document childcare providers used from the age of 3. Importantly this included the name
of the provider as well as the broad type of care and number of sessions attended. In many cases
therefore we can observe many children attending the same pre-school provider immediately prior
to school entry. From this then we can get a measure of attainment among the childs pre-school
peer group. We were concerned that many children would go on to be assessed by the same teacher
for the EA score and that any idiosyncratic teacher effects in scoring would muddy this measure of
the pre-school peer group. Such teacher effects should be just random measurement error over the
whole population. But within the same school this practice would give the impression that the peer
group was very influential whereas in reality it was just teacher bias (a teacher scoring the children
higher or lower than average). So we construct our measure of the peer group from those who
attended the same pre-school but did not attend the same school. These observations are thus
independent of the reporting teacher. Where a child attends more than one provider we average
across the different providers weighting by the number of sessions attended. This peer group
measure will capture a range of influences from the natural attainment of the other children, to
their family background and any common influence of the pre-school. It thus includes any effects
of the quality of the pre-school provider.
We can go further, though, in separating influences. We predict the other childrens attainment
using the general model containing all family background and mediating influences provided in the
data, except the nature of the pre-school provider. This is then a measure of the extent to which the
children forming the peer group are from more affluent, better educated families which read to
their children etc., reflecting how these factors influence attainment in our model. This measure
42
therefore does not contain any element of the quality of pre-school provider as it is based only on
family characteristics of the children attending it. The unexplained residual from our estimates then
reflects the average of the variation in attainment across children in the peer group that is not
explained by the childs background. This will cover the idiosyncratic component for each
individual child averaged across the peer group, which will be influenced by the quality of the
common attendance of the same pre-school provider. It will also reflect any measurement error in
the data. Large amounts of measurement error will make it hard to observe childcare quality for
small samples attending each provider.
There was substantial variation in the average EA scores across types of pre-school provider.
Children attending private nurseries score well above the mean of 100 on average (102.77) but this
is fully predicted by the background and mediating behaviours of the families and the residual term
is close to 0. This suggests that children leaving these nurseries may be performing well (as shown
in the section on childcare types) due to the common high quality of their family background, not
because of the type of nursery attended. The reverse story applies to LEA nurseries. In addition,
though, the results showed that there is considerable variation across providers in this residual
unexplained component which may suggest that there are good and bad providers within each
sector.
43
Table 8: The effects of Neighbourhood and Pre-school Peer Group on Child Outcomes at age 5
44
Combined Analysis
The approach in this last section is to examine how the introduction of the alternative groups of
proximal variables studied in the previous sections acts as transmission routes for the more distal
indicators - income, parental education, lone parent status etc - on the attainment and behaviour
outcomes. The intention is to see whether these behaviours are the route by which background
family circumstances affect outcomes. Causality cannot be proven, but if, for example, we observe
that well educated parents have both more frequent engagement in reading and teaching activity
and raised child educational attainment at school entry, then there is a plausible causal chain from
the reading and teaching activity to the raised child achievement. Similarly, if the income effect is
coming from reduced books or toys in the home or less childcare, outings and the like, then it
seems reasonable to view these as the route of the impact of reduced financial circumstances.
However, there will be a lot of grey areas where causality is at best tentative. We then are
assessing which of the proximal influences measured in ALSPAC are associated with educational
attainment and behaviour outcomes directly and to what extent they appear to be the routes through
which dimensions of family background are operating.
45
Table 9: Groups of variables used as controls in Entry Assessment regressions
Maternal
Outings Mothers health,
Basic
Income Scores & childhood and attitudes and Neighbourho
demographi Childcare Parenting
Home family social od
cs
Environment background networks
Log Education
Mothers Care by Maternal Department Tenure of
average Social support domain
highest partner pre- reading store outings mothers
weekly net score deprivation
qualification age 2 score score childhood home
income score
Average EA
Partners Financial Care by Mothers father
Teaching Library Locus of score of peers
highest difficulties friend/relativ absent from
score outings score control score predicted
qualification pre-birth e pre-age 2 childhood home
component
Average EA
Care by paid Mothers
Lone parent 18 month score of peers
person pre- Book score mothers highest
status TV score residual
age 2 qualification
component
Centre- Mother has a
Mothers age
based care Breastfeeding Toy score history of
at birth
pre-age 2 truancy
Mother feels
Nursery
school was a
Ethnicity class age 3/
valuable
4
experience
LEA nursery
Gender school age
3/ 4
Private day
Birth weight nursery age
3/ 4
Nursery
Special care (type
unit at birth undefined)
age 3/ 4
Younger
Playgroup
siblings by
age 3/ 4
47 months
Other
Older
centre-based
siblings
care age 3/ 4
Cohort year
Partners
employment
at 47 months
What is the role of our proximal factors in explaining the impact of family
background?
This section examines how the proximal factors can account for the association of family
background with child development. So, for example, one question of particular interest is whether
46
more educated parents tend to provide more cognitive stimulation for their children. It also
assesses how the proximal factors we study here are working independently of others or how they
are correlated.
Including our groups of proximal variables reduces the observed correlation of basic demographics
- family background characteristics - with attainment. Our focus is to examine whether these
family characteristics become less important as other proximal factors are added and to get a sense
of the routes by which family background operates to influence attainment.
Parental Education
Our groups of mediating influences can explain a little over half of the effect of parental education
on attainment. The raw gap between attainment of children with the least and most educated
mothers was 5.5 points or a standard deviation. Conditioning on our mediating influences
reduces this to 2.4 points (44% of the original value). The observed decline in the strength of the
relationship between parental education and child attainment as we add in proximal controls
suggests that parenting behaviour and the home environment measures are the strongest
mechanisms through which parental education operates on childrens educational readiness at
school entry. Better educated parents engaged in reading to their children more and their children
watched less TV especially at age 3. These parents also provided a home with higher book and toy
scores and engaged in more trips to the library. These aspects of behaviour and the home
environment influenced child attainment. Pre-school childcare is not a major route by which well-
educated parents increase their childrens attainment. Mothers own childhood events and her locus
of control and social networks are more important in explaining the impact of low education
relative to middle education.
Lone Parenthood
Lone parenthood is not a statistically significant influence on early attainment in any specification
but it goes from being a marginally negative influence on child outcomes to a marginally positive
one when the proximal routes of influence are included. Low income and low book and toy scores
are the main factors which turn around the point estimates. One other interesting feature of these
results is that the lone parent coefficients are left broadly unchanged once parenting behaviour
controls are introduced. This would suggest that children of lone parents are not doing less well
because of parenting behaviours. The main conclusion is that children of lone mothers are not
performing worse than their peers, once other factors are conditioned on (especially their age and
income). (As noted in Section 2 our sample of lone parents is not representative and so care needs
47
to be exercised here.)
Mothers Age
Teen motherhood has an especially large negative association with the childs cognitive
attainment. The proximal routes explored can explain around 40% of this attainment deficit, with
family income being the most substantive route. The positive benefits of older motherhood are
much better explained by the observed mediating factors, with parenting behaviour and income
being the major two influences.
Ethnic Minorities
Children from non-White families do slightly less well on entry to school than White children.
About a third of this can be explained by observed differences in the groups of more proximal
influences used here. The biggest influence is in the home environment (book and toy scores) and
outings measures. Income also plays a role. Parenting behaviour, maternal employment and mental
health and social support are unimportant as routes explaining the gap between non-Whites and
Whites. There are too few observations among the non-White communities to allow for more
detailed breakdown by ethnicity.
48
Which Influences remain important after conditioning on the full set of
proximal factors?
We explore which particular dimensions of the set of proximal influence variables remain
important once we condition on the full set of influences described in Table 9. We add each set of
influences in turn and assess which influences remain important. For example, parenting and
childcare may vary systematically together. Once parenting behaviour is conditioned upon,
childcare may become less relatively important than when its impact is measured in isolation.
Childcare
The broad pattern of the results for care up to age 2 discussed above are not greatly affected by
other influences considered here. However, controlling family income does reduce the positive
effects of nursery centres. The most important change in estimated impact of pre-school entry
provider comes after controlling for the neighbourhood and the peer group, defined on the basis of
the pre-school attended. The results suggest that a considerable amount of the positive effects of
private nurseries and all the adverse effects of LEA nurseries is driven by peer group composition.
This is also partly true for the other (probably specialist) care. Private care up to age 2 and private
care prior to school entry and LEA nursery care become insignificant when all factors are
conditioned upon. So the initially apparent beneficial association of attending a private nursery
prior to school entry comes from the association of such attendance with the child coming from a
more affluent family with more home teaching, books, toys, outings etc and from attending a pre-
school with similar high attaining children. Once we condition on the peer group there is no
evidence that private nurseries are outperforming Nursery classes. In addition, LEA nurseries are
performing poorly solely because of the concentration of children from deprived backgrounds in
this pre-school setting.
On type of childcare, the results suggest that conditional on all other mediating influences and
background characteristics:
Limited (5-19) hours of care by partner up to age 2 is modestly beneficial to child
development (this could well be outside the partners working hours)
Extended care (20+ hours) up to age 2 by friends and relatives (mainly grandparents) is
modestly harmful.
Nursery care (in school, class or private setting) when aged 3-4 is modestly beneficial to
childrens attainment on entry to school.
49
Following earlier analysis in Section 5, there is no evidence that full-time Nursery exposure
at 3 or 4 is more beneficial than part-time.
There is no evidence that attending a Nursery is more beneficial for those with less
educated mothers. (Note that the lack of assessment of quality of childcare means these
results are less reliable than other studies of the influence of quality childcare on
development such as the EPPE project, see Sylva et al. 2004.)
Parenting Behaviour
The broad pattern of the effects of parenting behaviour remains unchanged when other influences
are conditioned on. The impact of TV watching and breastfeeding are reduced substantially in
magnitude. Conditioning on family income is important in reducing the importance of these
behaviours, and the home environment (books and toys) and outings are important in reducing the
impact of TV watching, suggesting that TV is used more by low-income families perhaps because
it is cheap entertainment. Teaching behaviour is almost completely unaffected by this conditioning
and remains the most important influence of measured attainment at 5.
50
in and of itself and that this is associated with low income. The key Outings and Home
Environment influences are:
A very low book ownership score, which affects 6% of children (those in homes reporting
no more than 9 childrens books in the home on 5 occasions before school entry), and
which in turn is associated with low reading and low income, remains a substantive
influence on child attainment conditional on confounding influences.
In the same vein, a very low toy score (measured at 24 months and covering 7% of children
with lowest cumulative score for a range of toys) is also found to be detrimental to child
cognitive development.
There is no evidence that better educated parents are providing higher quality books or
toys, in terms of their impact on child development.
Trips to Libraries and not going to department stores retain weak positive influences on
development.
51
After conditioning on other influences, the social networks score becomes insignificant and the
locus of control term is reduced in importance, largely through its correlation with poorer parenting
scores and a worse home environment. Mothers who feel their actions have little impact engage in
less teaching and reading to their children. However, there remains a modest independent effect of
this factor over and above this.
52
Table 10: Decomposition of range of scores for various groups (Entry Assessment)
Children of mothers
Top and bottom
Top and bottom quartiles of with CSE/no
quartiles of
attainment qualifications vs. a
household income
degree
% total % explained % total % total
variation variation variation variation
Points Points Points
accounted accounted accounted accounted
for by: for by: for by: for by:
Difference in
25.4 100 100 6.6 100 9.5 100
mean scores
Explained variation contribution of:
Age of child at
2.6 10.1 32.2 -0.1 -1.9 -0.1 -0.7
assessment
Parental
Education 0.9 3.4 10.8 1.5 22.2 3.8 40.4
Other
1.3 5.0 15.8 0.7 10.0 0.6 6.7
Demographic
Variables
53
The largest influences are the residual influences of our distal factors - parental education and other
demographic variables (family size, mothers age etc) - which represent a quarter of the explained
variation (column 3). All the groups of proximal variables together account for a little over 40% of
the explained variation. Of these proximal variables three are most important for cognitive
outcomes at age 5:
parental behaviours especially reading and teaching to the children;
the physical learning environment as represented by books, toys and outings
the peer group with whom the child shares their pre-school learning.
Here we explore how income and parental education work through the proximal factors. Using
table 10, we can explore how the observed mediating routes transmit education and income into
the childs attainment.
Income
The fourth column shows highest and lowest quartiles of the income distribution have average
attainment gap of 6.6 points, so those from deprived and affluent families are about two thirds of a
standard deviation apart on school entry. Column 4 shows parental education and demographic
characteristics of the family, especially numbers of siblings and mothers age, are important
determinants of this gap. These reflect influences on attainment which, although correlated with
income, are probably causal in themselves rather than being a reflection of how income impacts on
childrens development. The number of siblings could be both directly causal (in reducing the time
and effort parents can put into any one child) and indirectly causal in that income is being spread
more thinly. The mothers upbringing, in the impact of her pre-birth deprivation, is likely to have
affected her current income but clearly has a substantial effect on the attainment of the child,
reflecting intergenerational effects of deprivation.
Of the proximal influences where income may well make a difference, the strongest are the
neighbourhood and peer group, followed by the home environment (books, toys and outings) and
childcare. These are plausible routes by which income impacts on child development irrespective
of other family circumstances. What is striking about the neighbourhood effects is that once we
have conditioned on family income and the basic demographics all the other proximal influences
considered have little or no conditional correlation with neighbourhood. This suggests that
measures of family functioning and home circumstances are not correlated with the neighbourhood
54
effects observed. Parenting and mothers mental and physical health play supporting roles. The
lack of importance of parenting in explaining the income gap is because parenting behaviour,
although very important in driving a childs pre-school attainment, it is not strongly related to
family income. Nor do we find evidence that better educated families teach pre-school children
more effectively.
Of the total 6.6 point attainment gap on our measure between rich and poor children, a quarter is
unrelated to the other influences considered. This residual component can represent three possible
factors. First, there are missing elements or mechanisms driven by income; second, high income
families do use the mechanisms reported here more effectively in an additive way or third, there
are unmeasured background factors correlated with income which mean that the residual income
effects are not causal. So, at most, around half of the raw difference in attainment between the
richest and poorest pre-school children can be thought of as genuinely driven by income, with a
lower bound of around a quarter4.
Parental education
Column 5 of table 10 shows the gap in attainment between children of mothers with CSE level
qualifications or lower (i.e. below GCSE level A-C) and degree holding mothers is 9.5 points. This
is much larger than the gap of 6.6 points between the poorest and richest families. Around 60% of
this raw unconditional gap is explained by factors (other than parental education) observed in the
data. The residual correlation with parental education could reflect omitted factors such as genetic
inheritance, other transmission mechanisms not covered here, or that the better educated impart
learning in a general way unrelated to the mechanisms considered here.
Nevertheless, half of the early learning deficit associated with less educated parents is explained
and the results suggest that the home environment (which is strongly related to income), parenting
behaviours, family income, neighbourhood and the peer group the child is attending pre-school
with, are the main drivers. Early differences in pre-school childcare arrangements are only a minor
factor.
4
US welfare experimental studies suggest that raising income as a result of in-work welfare supplements raising child
attainment measures among pre-school children (see Clark-Kauffman et al. (2003). This research suggests that around
a 20% increase in income results in improved attainment of the order of 5 to 7 per cent of a standard deviation. The
results here suggest that increased income from the top to bottom quintiles, approximately a tripling of income, would
raise attainment by 34% of a standard deviation (the unexplained component plus the correlations with childcare and
home environment which are plausibly driven by income). Whilst not strictly comparable, the order of magnitude is
not way out of line. Interestingly this literature also highlights the roles of childcare and outings as routes by which
income changes influence attainment. The Moving To Opportunity experiments in the US where some families are
moved out of ghetto areas into more affluent ones on a random basis has also been shown to improve education
outcomes but results are for primary school age children (see Goering, 2003, for a discussion of MTO results).
55
Behaviour
We repeat this analysis for the behaviour scores. The range of factors found to have an influence
on behaviour (conditional only on basic demographics) is substantially different than for
educational attainment: these are shown in Table 11. Mothers physical and mental health and
within family conflict issues are far more important for behaviour than for attainment, as are
mothers attitude to, or bonding with, the child and discipline strategies.
Basic Demographics
We look at which proximal variables are acting as transmitters for the basic demographic variables
(column 1 of table 11).
Parental Education
We found above that parental education was not strongly related to behavioural outcomes. The role
of parental education is further diminished when the groups of proximal factors are introduced.
Perhaps surprisingly, parenting behaviours - including discipline mechanisms and mothers bonding
with the child - are not important in this process. Rather it is the home environment (toys, books
etc) and mothers mental health and self-confidence that are important for behaviour. So the
influence of parental education on behaviour appears to work mainly through the home
environment, mothers locus of control, self-esteem and mothers depression/anxiety.
Lone Parenthood
Children in lone parent families exhibit substantially worse behaviour scores but these appear to
mainly to be working through parenting differences and family income. Lone parents with a new
partner at 47 months are still observed as having moderately worse behaviour scores, which may
reflect tensions brought on by re-partnering. Mothers mental health and self-esteem/locus of
control scores also appears to be an important mediating influence for the impact of lone parent
status on child behaviour.
Mothers Age
Teen mothers and, to a slightly lesser degree, mothers in their early 20s have children with
substantially worse behaviour scores. This is transmitted through differences in parenting
behaviour, especially discipline and maternal bonding, and in mothers mental health and self-
esteem. So, conditional on these proximal routes, teen motherhood has only a modest independent
effect on behaviour and motherhood in the early 20s have no adverse effects.
56
Table 11: Groups of variables used as controls in Behaviour regressions
Maternal
Mothers health,
Outings Scores
Basic Income childhood attitudes
Childcare Parenting & Home Neighbourhood
demographics and family and social
Environment
background networks
Average
Log Mothers
Mothers Care by Maternal Mothers behaviour score
average Park/playground relationship
highest partner pre- reading physical of peers
weekly net outings score with mother
qualification age 2 score health predicted
income score
component
Average
Partners Financial Care by Paternal Visits to Mother has a Social behaviour score
highest difficulties friend/relative reading friends/relatives history of networks of peers
qualification pre-birth pre-age 2 score outings score truancy score residual
component
Mother feels
Care by paid Places of Social
Lone parent Teaching school was a
person pre- interest outings support
status score valuable
age 2 score score
experience
Talking
Places of
Mothers age Centre-based whilst Total CCEI
entertainment
at birth care pre-age 2 occupied score
outings score
score
Nursery class 18 month Self-esteem
Ethnicity Book score
age 3/ 4 TV score score
LEA nursery Locus of
38 month
Gender school age 3/ Toy score control
TV score
4 score
Mothers
Private day Damp/
Smoked in satisfaction
Birth weight nursery age 3/ condensation/
pregnancy with
4 mould
relationship
Nursery (type Maternal
Special care
undefined) bonding
unit at birth
age 3/ 4 score
Younger
Playgroup age Types of
siblings by 47
3/ 4 discipline
months
Other centre-
Older siblings based care
age 3/ 4
Partners
employment at
47 months
We explore next which particular dimensions of the set of proximal influence variables remain
important once we condition on the full set of influences described in Table 11. We added each set
of influences in turn and assessed which influences remain important after this process.
Childcare
The use of friends and relative carers up to age 2 and centre based care is weakly associated with
worse behavioural outcomes before other proximal influences are controlled for. There is little
evidence of behaviour variations associated with care immediately prior to school entry (outside
specialist or social service run care). The introduction of the other proximal factors leaves the
weak negative results up to age 2 largely unaffected suggesting that it is early childcare of these
forms which is slightly damaging. The results for pre-school childcare (age 4) disappear once
parenting is controlled for. Poor mothers mental health also makes the effect of childcare
disappear. This suggests that LEA nursery and other care types are not the driver of these adverse
correlations but parenting behaviours and mothers poor mental health, locus of control etc., which
is consistent with those using these types of care having special needs identified by social services.
Home Environment
Outings and the home based book and toy scores are correlated with behavioural scores before
other proximal factors are considered. There is a strong overlap between these factors and
parenting behaviours, which causes large declines in their importance when parenting is also
included. Yet apart from the overlap with parenting behaviours these relationships are not greatly
affected by the other proximal factors.
Mothers Childhood
The mothers relationship with her mother and how positive the mother feels about her own
schooling are strongly correlated with behavioural outcomes of the child when other influences are
58
not considered. These attitudes are strongly correlated in turn with reports of physical and mental
health (depression and self-esteem) and to a lesser degree with parenting behaviour. So once these
proximal influences are conditioned on the mothers own childhood experiences of school and
relationship with her mother have only a modest effect
The key influences are very different for behaviour compared to cognitive attainment. The
proportion explained by income and parental education after we condition on our mediating
59
influences are very low (columns 2 and 3). However, the influences of parenting behaviours
(especially erratic disciplining) and mental health (especially depression and low self-esteem and
an external locus of control) are extremely important. Together parenting and maternal health
represent nearly 75% of the explained variation of the model. Of the remaining factors, the home
environment makes a modest contribution. Childcare, like parental education, income,
neighbourhood and maternal employment, has no substantive part to play in explaining variation in
behaviour.
Parental
Education 0.2 0.8 3.2 0.6 14.2 1.5 33.4
Other
0.4 1.8 6.8 0.3 7.5 0.1 3.2
Demographic
Variables
Outings & Home 0.4 1.8 6.5 0.4 8.4 0.4 9.4
Environment
Mothers
childhood and
0.3 1.1 4.0 0.2 4.5 0.3 6.3
family
background
Maternal health,
attitudes and 2.0 7.9 30.4 1.4 30.2 1.1 24.0
social networks
Neighbourhood
0.1 0.5 1.8 0.1 1.2 0.1 1.2
and peer group
Unexplained
18.6 73.9 - -0.0 -0.4 0.0 0.0
variation
60
How do Parental Education and Income Influence a Childs Early Behaviour?
Here we explore how income and parental education work through the proximal factors to
influence childrens behaviour. Columns 4 and 6 of table 12 show the differences in raw behaviour
scores between the highest and lowest education and income groups are modest in size. The most
important factor explaining the differences in behaviour at different levels of income are parenting
and mother mental and physical health. It should be noted again that our behavioural measure is
solely mother reported (and does not correlate strongly with teacher based assessments for the sub-
sample where this is available), so these results need to be treated with some caution. The same
story applies for parental education - there is a strong cross-correlation with poor mental health and
parenting styles - but there is a much larger residual component than for income, such that around
a third of the raw relationship between education levels of parents and childrens behaviour
remains attached to the education terms. Outings and the physical home learning environment are
the next most important group of proximal influences explaining the gap.
61
62
Results II: Evolution of Cognitive Development from Age 5 to
Age 7
In this chapter we examine cognitive development at age 7. We take the same set of variables that
were used in Part 1 of the study. These represent the key drivers of early learning in children prior
to entry into school according to our data. We examine whether these variables explain cognitive
development between age 5 and 7. The methodology is very similar to that used in our study of
outcomes up to age 5.
The data
The data contains two measures of cognitive development at age 7. The first is the Key Stage 1
(KS1) assessment, administered in Year 2 at age 6 or 7. The data also contains an assessment of
cognitive ability administered by the ALSPAC team to children at the age of 7. At age 7 the
availability of the two available scores allows us to construct a composite score, which will be
more accurate than a single measure alone. This composite score covers some 7, 500 children.
As there were a number of children in the sample for whom there was, at the time of the report, no
data on outcomes at school at age 7, we undertook robustness tests to check that the results were
not affected by differential data reporting. In the first column of the tables that follow we show
results for age 7 for the maximum sample size we can observe at age 7. This is followed by the age
7 results for the common sample that has both age 7 outcomes and age 5 EA test results. The next
column presents the age 5 EA results for this same sample. The final column is a simple value
added (or change) measure that is just the age 7 score minus the age 5 score. The final column
therefore allows us to examine what factors affect change in outcomes between age 5 and 7.
Basic Demographics
We start by looking at the impact on attainment at age 7 of the basic demographic characteristics
that are strong predictors of age 5 assessment. We first present results without the mediating
factors included so that broader relationships between family background and child attainment can
be observed (Table 13). The results comparing the larger and restrictive samples (columns 1 and 2)
for the average attainment score at age 7 are very similar. In no case are the estimated coefficients
significantly different from each other. In addition, the comparison between the age 7 score results
and the EA test results show very similar patterns in most cases.
63
There are a number of results where the general pattern of stability does not hold. Firstly, we see
that children of lone parents are performing less well in the age 7 data than the age 5 data,
especially in the expanded sample. However, for sampling reasons discussed above, the lone
parent results need to be treated with caution. Next we come to mothers age, where although the
signs are similar the magnitudes of the adverse effects are substantially lower. This shift may
reflect a reduction in the power of the mediating influences associated with teen motherhood or a
general catch up by children born to younger mothers. Alternatively, it could reflect bias in the EA
results if teachers are systematically under-scoring children with young mothers. The same story
applies to children from ethnic minorities. In the EA tests these pupils were scored as under
performing compared to those from the White population. However, in the average test results at
age 7 this has completely turned around. Again this could reflect rapidly improving child
development or that teachers were systematically under-scoring these children on school entry. The
gender of the child makes less of a difference at age 7 than at age 5, although girls are still
significantly ahead of boys in educational development. This may well be a genuine developmental
catch up. As these results still hold conditional on our mediating influences including parenting
behaviours etc. then the fact that girls are ahead of boys, at this age, does not reflect increased
parental teaching or reading to girls or exposure to different peer groups. Very low birth weight is
associated with significantly less of a deficit in the age 7 data, again suggesting some catch up.
Table 13. The impact of Basic Demographics on Average Score at 7, Entry Assessment at 5
and value added
64
Table 13. The impact of Basic Demographics on Average Score at 7, Entry Assessment at 5
and value added (continued.)
We next explore whether the mediating influences appear to have different effects at ages 5 and 7.
The mediating influences we consider all pre-date age 5 and so we might expect that some aspects
of what effects early child learning will dissipate as children age.
Parenting Behaviours
We start with parental interactions with their children between ages 8 months and 4 years. We
found above that parenting behaviours in the pre-school period were a strong influence on EA
scores. The largest impact came from maternal teaching behaviour in the pre-school period, which
was greater than effects of mothers education. There was no evidence that the teaching of better
educated mothers was more effective than that of the less educated. Maternal reading behaviour
was quantitatively less important but less intensive reading resulted in substantial deficits. Other
parenting behaviours such as the child watching 6+ hours of TV a week at 18 months and breast-
feeding beyond 6 months were of moderate importance.
65
Table 14 Parenting Average Score at 7 and Entry Assessment at 5
Our analysis of age 7 scores (Table 14) shows that maternal teaching and maternal reading during
pre-school remain significant determinants of age 7 outcomes. The relative impact of the two
behaviours is the same: teaching has a larger impact than reading. Again, the impact of maternal
teaching is greater than the effect of maternal education (see Table 13 above). Breastfeeding is also
a significant but modest determinant of age 7 outcomes, but long hours of TV watching when
young appears no longer to affect outcomes.
A comparison of the impact of parental behaviours at age 5 and age 7 (comparison of columns 2
and 3) indicated that, with the sole exception of TV watching, the impact of the parental
behaviours on child outcomes is very similar at the two ages. There is some indication that the
impact of early teaching behaviour is slightly weaker for age 7 than age 5 outcomes, but these
changes are not statistically significant in the value added equation.
66
Outings and the Home Environment
Entry assessment scores at age 5 were significantly associated with several aspects of the home
environment. A very low book score (which in turn is associated with low reading and low
income), which affects the 6% of children, was a substantive negative influence on child
attainment. Similarly, a very low toy score (measured at 24 months and covering 7% of children
with lowest cumulative score for a range of toys) was also found to be detrimental to child
cognitive development. The pattern of outings also affected attainment, where trips to libraries had
a positive association and attending department stores a negative association with development at
age 5. The outings and home environment measures are strongly correlated with parenting
behaviours around TV watching and reading and with having a low income.
The results for attainment at age 7 indicate that these behaviours have a slightly weaker link with
attainment. The effect of being in a home with a low book score is negatively and significantly
associated with the age 7 attainment score. The effect is somewhat smaller than at age 5 although
the change is not statistically significant. The number of toys is no longer significantly associated
with attainment. The library as the destination of outings retains a significant impact but one that is
around half the size of its impact on age 5 outcomes. Trips to department stores when young have
no effect on attainment at age 7.
Table 15 Outings and Home Environment Average Score at 7 and Entry Assessment at 5
67
Pre-School Childcare
Firstly, exposure to childcare up to the age of 24 months is considered, measured by the types of
care used and whether this was for 5-19 or over 20 hours per week. Then the type of childcare or
early education setting immediately prior to entry into school, normally at age 4 is considered.
Finally we measure who the child went to pre-school with the peer group. The last measure is
considered later in the study whilst here we deal with the type of provision.
The key findings in our assessment of the relationship between pre-school childcare and attainment
at school entry were:
Limited (5-19) hours of care by a partner (normally the father of the child) up to age 2 is
modestly beneficial to child development (this could well be outside the other partners,
usually the mothers working hours)
Extended care (20+ hours) up to age 2 by friends and relatives (mainly grandparents) is
68
modestly harmful.
Nursery care (in school class or private setting) when aged 3-4 is modestly beneficial to
childrens attainment on entry to school.
There is no evidence that full-time Nursery exposure at 3 or 4 is more beneficial than part-
time.
There is no evidence that attending a Nursery is more beneficial for those with less
educated mothers.
Table 16 shows these patterns have substantially changed by the time children have experienced
the first two years of full-time schooling. The impact of nursery attendance in the immediate pre-
school period has vanished for all three groups of nursery care (school based, private and
unknown). The robustness of this result across all three types of nursery care makes it clear this is a
general phenomenon. Hence exposure to pre-school learning in a nursery setting has no greater
effect on attainment at 7 than just attending a parent run playgroup or indeed nothing at all
(although very few children had no pre-school exposure). Note that the lack of assessment of
quality of childcare means these results are less reliable than other studies of the influence of
quality childcare on development such as the EPPE project (Sylva et al. 2004).
The one persistent finding is that childcare by friends or relatives is associated with modestly
adverse educational outcomes at age 7 and that this is now true for 5-19 hours as well as over 20
hours a week.
69
Table 17. Mothers Childhood and Family Background Average Score at 7 and Entry
Assessment at 5
Mother feels school was a valuable experience (base = not sure/generally not/no)
Yes very Insignificant Insignificant Insignificant Insignificant
Yes generally Insignificant Insignificant Modest Negative Modest Positive
Note: A modest effect equates to a n effect of up to 1/10 of a standard deviation, a moderate effect to between 1/10 and 2/10 of a standard
deviation and a Large effect to above 2/10 of a standard deviation.
This group of potential influences were not found to have a large impact on childrens educational
development. The variable from this group retaining a significant effect was only the mothers
locus of control measure. This, in itself, suggested that mothers mental and physical health and
within family conflict had little influence on a childs educational development pre-school. As
Table 18 indicates, the role of the mothers locus of control persists and may have increased
marginally in strength. Mothers who feel their actions have little impact also engage in less
teaching and reading of their children than do other parents. So this influence is quite substantial in
that it may causally reduce parental teaching as well as having a modest independent effect over
and above this.
70
Table 18. Maternal Health, Attitudes and Social Networks Average Score at 7 and Entry
Assessment at 5
This section looks at how the relationships between neighbourhood and peer group and child
attainment are related to other mediating influences. Using our data we can get a measure of
attainment amongst childrens peer groups.
As part of the Focus @ 7 face-to-face interviews with mother and child, the mother was asked to
document childcare providers used from the age of 3. This included the name of the provider so in
many cases we can observe many children attending the same pre-school provider immediately
prior to school entry. From this then we can get a measure of attainment among the childs pre-
school peer group. We were concerned that many children from one provider would be assessed
by the same teacher for their EA score so that any idiosyncratic teacher effects in scoring would
muddy this measure of the pre-school peer group. Such teacher effects should be just random
measurement error over the whole population. But for children within the same school this practice
would give the impression that the peer group was very influential whereas in reality it was just
teacher bias (a teacher scoring the children higher or lower than average). So we construct our
measure of the peer group from those who attended the same pre-school but did not attend the
same school (and so were scored for EA by a different teacher). These observations are thus
independent of the child. Where a child attends more than one provider we average across the
different providers, weighting by the number of sessions attended. This peer group measure will
capture a range of influences from the natural attainment of the other children, to their family
background and any common influence of the pre-school. It thus includes any effects of the quality
of the pre-school provider.
71
We can go further in separating influences. To get at childcare quality we do the following. We
predict the other childrens attainment using the general model containing all family background
and mediating influences provided in the data, but excluding the pre-school provider. This is then a
measure of the extent to which the children forming the peer group are from more affluent, better
educated families etc. This measure therefore does not contain any element of the quality of pre-
school provider as it is based only on the family characteristics of the children attending it. The
unexplained residual from these estimates (the difference between the actual EA score and the
predicted score of the peer group) then reflects the variation in attainment across children in the
peer group that is not explained by the childs background. This will contain the idiosyncratic
component for each individual child averaged across the peer group, which will be influenced by
the quality of the common attendance of the same pre-school provider. It will also reflect any
measurement error in the data. Large amounts of measurement error will make it hard to observe
childcare quality for the small samples which attend each provider.
Table 19 shows, for the EA test, having attended a pre-school provider whose intake is from
families who have characteristics associated with high attaining children results in gains for a
child. This is probably because attending a provider that has children drawn from families with
high incomes and positive parenting behaviours for example, has a strong peer group influence on
a child. The residual component of attainment among peer group children, the part not predicted by
each childs background characteristics, is negatively associated with attainment. If this reflected
attainment amongst a common population attending the same pre-school then this relationship
should be positive. So we can find no evidence of a pre-school quality effect, this is probably
because this residual is being swamped by measurement error in the data. Finally, coming from a
ward where education levels in the population are low is associated with less child attainment.
By age 7 the main peer group effect disappears. Those who attended a pre-school with children
whose family backgrounds are associated with high achieving (and who went on to different
primary schools) are no longer out performing other children. So early peer group influences
appear very short lived. Put together with the evidence on the lack of effects from the types of pre-
school providers used, this suggests that the form of pre-school education has no lasting impact on
children.
72
Table 19. Neighborhood Average Score at 7 and Entry Assessment at 5
Table 20 presents the contributions of all the proximal variables on age 7 outcomes. These results
put all the background controls and mediating variables into a single model and then apportions the
variance explained by each. Column 1 shows that the difference in mean scores at age 7 between
those in the top and bottom quarters of the population of children is just under 24 points or two
standard deviations. Column 1 of table 20 shows all background controls and mediating factors
explains just over 19% of the gap. Columns 2 and 3 show the strong influences - other than
income and parental education - are other background measures (gender, ethnicity, numbers of
siblings etc.), parenting activity, the home learning environment, neighbourhood and mothers
childhood experiences. Childcare and mothers mental and physical health are negligibly
associated with the attainment gap.
73
Table 20: Decomposition of range of mean scores for cognitive outcome at age 7 (Common
Age 5 and Age 7 sample of 4996 Observations)
Top and bottom quartiles of Top and bottom quartiles of household Children of mothers with CSE/no
attainment income qualifications vs. a degree
% total % explained % total % explained % total % explained
variation variation variation variation variation variation
Points Points Points
accounted accounted accounted for accounted accounted accounted
for by: for by: by: for by: for by: for by:
Difference in mean scores 23.8 100 100 5.9 100 100 8.4 100 100
Explained variation contribution of:
Income 0.3 1.3 6.9 1.7 28.3 29.2 0.7 8.0 8.0
Parental Education 1.0 4.2 22.7 1.7 28.6 29.5 4.0 47.4 47.4
Other Demographic 1.1 4.6 25.4 0.4 6.0 6.2 0.6 6.8 6.8
Variables
Childcare 0.1 0.6 3.1 0.1 1.8 1.8 0.2 2.7 2.7
Parenting 0.5 2.3 12.6 0.2 3.4 3.5 0.6 6.5 6.5
Outings & Home 0.3 1.5 8.0 0.3 5.9 6.0 0.6 7.1 7.1
Environment
Mothers childhood and
0.3 1.2 6.6 0.4 7.0 7.2 0.7 7.9 7.9
family background
Maternal health, attitudes
0.2 1.0 5.3 0.4 7.3 7.6 0.6 6.8 6.8
and social networks
Neighbourhood 0.4 1.7 9.3 0.5 8.7 9.0 0.6 6.7 6.7
Column 4 shows the attainment gap between the richest and poorest quarters of the children is 5.9
points (or just under 0.6 of a standard deviation). This is a substantial attainment gap. Once we
condition on all other measures of family background and the mediating influences, around 28% of
this gap remains unexplained (and is thus just correlated with income). Parental education and
other background influences are associated with around 35% of the attainment gap between rich
and poor. The remaining influences are our proximal factors, the routes through which income
could be having a direct influence. Childcare and parenting are relatively minor routes through
which income influences the attainment differences between rich and poor children. The more
substantial influences are neighbourhood, maternal mental and physical health, mothers childhood
and the home learning environment. Parental behaviours before age 4, covering teaching and
reading, are a minor factor behind the differences in attainment at age 7.
Column 7 shows the attainment gap between those with degree educated mothers and those with
mothers with very low or no qualifications is 0.8 of a standard deviation (8.4 points on our scale).
74
Around half of this gap is unexplained by the model and could reflect genetic and other influences.
Family income and other family background factors are associated with around 15% of this gap but
all the other proximal influences are powerful transmitters of parental education with the exception
of childcare choices. So our mediating or proximal influences explain more of how parental
education is transmitted to children than of how family income is transmitted, although our
measure of family income is somewhat dated by age 7, being an average of income at ages 3 and 4.
When compared with the results for Entry Assessment at age 5 (Table 10a) it is clear that the
model explains less of the overall variation in attainment at age 7 than at age 5. Table 10a repeats
table 10 earlier for the common sample who have both EA outcomes at age 5 and 7. There is a
general decline in the predictive power of pre-school experiences on child development as the
children age (from 23% of the attainment gap between the highest and least able quarters of the
population, to around 18%). This could reflect a simple ageing process, as our measures have
become more dated, or other influences coming to bear, the most obvious being schooling.
Looking at the influences in detail, by comparing Tables 10a and 20, suggests widespread small
declines in the influences of parenting behaviours, neighbourhood and peer groups, the home
learning environment and other background factors. Of these the declining importance in
neighbourhood and peer groups is the most marked. The influence of parental education, income
and mothers mental and physical health are more stable.
When we focus on the attainment gap between the richest and poorest quarters of children we see a
small convergence in attainment as the gap reduces from 6.9 points at age 5 to 5.9 at age 7. This
convergence is especially apparent in the decline in the impact of neighbourhood and peer group in
explaining the attainment gap between rich and poor. There are also declines in many other
influences.
75
Table 10.a: Decomposition of Entry Assessment scores (age 5) Restricted sample
0.7 2.9 26.2 0.4 1.5 6.3 1.8 25.6 26.2 0.8 7.7 7.7
Income
Parental Education 2.1 8.3 73.8 1.0 3.9 16.8 1.5 22.3 22.9 4.1 41.6 41.6
Other Demographic - - - 1.4 5.5 23.6 0.5 7.3 7.5 0.5 4.6 4.6
Variables
Childcare - - - 0.3 1.1 4.9 0.2 3.4 3.4 0.4 3.7 3.7
Parenting - - - 0.9 3.4 14.5 0.4 5.7 5.8 0.9 8.8 8.8
Outings & Home - - - 0.7 2.7 11.8 0.6 8.5 8.7 1.1 11.6 11.6
Environment
Mothers childhood
and family - - - 0.3 1.2 5.0 0.3 4.7 4.8 0.6 6.0 6.0
background
Maternal health,
attitudes and social - - - 0.2 0.9 3.7 0.4 5.1 5.2 0.5 4.8 4.8
networks
Neighbourhood - - - 0.8 3.1 13.2 1.0 15.1 15.5 1.1 11.2 11.2
Unexplained
22.4 88.8 - 19.4 76.8 - 0.2 2.4 - 0.0 0.0 -
variation
As noted above, one of the reasons the model is explaining less of the patterns of attainment at age
7 may be that children are now attending school. To explore this in part, we repeated the analyses
reported in Table 20 but also include dummy variables for each school in the sample where more
than four children attend (the average is 20). These school fixed effects will capture variation in a
schools contribution to its childrens attainment from the typical (mean) school. This school effect
may vary systematically with aspects of childrens pre-school background, perhaps because more
affluent or educated parents seek out better schools or perhaps because schools are more effective
in raising attainment for certain groups of children than for others and these kinds of children are
concentrated in some schools.
When we introduce school fixed effects the explanatory power of the model at age 7 rises to 25%
(slightly higher than that explained at age 5). The variation in school performance is now the most
powerful group of predictors within the model, explaining around 6% of the overall variation.
76
Including school fixed effects has little impact on the other factors included, but the contributions
of income and parenting behaviours rise. So the variation in the impact of a specific school on
children is weakly negatively correlated with income and with involved parents. This is clearer (for
income) when we explore the attainment gap between the richest and poorest quarters of children
(income measured at ages 3-4). At age 5 this gap was predicted to be 6.9 points but at 7 it has
fallen slightly to 5.9 points, which may reflect that the income measure is more dated but also the
school fixed effects (bottom row), which are weakly negatively correlated with this gap. In their
absence the gap between rich and poor would be wider at 6.1 points. So variations in school
effectiveness have slightly narrowed the attainment gap between rich and poor children. We see
similar results when considering parental education.
Table 21 reports the retrieved school fixed effects. These measure the mean deviation for all pupils
in a school from the others in the model conditional on all other systematic influences. The range
of these school effects between the 10th and 90th percentiles is from approximately 4 to +4 points.
So predicted school effectiveness is a very large influence on child attainment by age 7.
Table 21 Retrieved School Fixed Effects Coefficients- Restricted sample, average score
77
78
Summary and Conclusions
The Research Methodology
We use the rich information in the ALSPAC data set to identify child outcomes at age 5 and age 7,
their relationship with family background, and a set of mediating influences (details of our precise
methodology are given in section 3.2 of Part I of the main report). In summary, we begin by
examining the relationship between each of these groups of mediating influences and the two child
outcomes (educational and behavioural development) at age 5 in order to determine which factors
are significantly associated with the outcomes of interest. In this examination, our focus is on the
pathways by which parental education and income affect child outcomes on school entry.
However, we also explore whether age of mother at birth, numbers of siblings, ethnicity and lone
parenthood influence attainment and their relationship with our mediating factors. Having
established the patterns of association at age 5 for cognitive and behavioural outcomes, we then
examine (in Part 2 of the report) the persistence of the associations through the first two years of
schooling. In this part, we examine only cognitive outcomes. We aim to assess whether the first
two years of education in school changes the key influences on child development at age 7
compared with what these had been prior to school entry. In particular, we assess whether the early
learning deficits based on family background persist and the role played in these deficits by the
factors identified in Part 1 in this persistence. In addition to these factors, we also examine the
effect of the school attended by the child.
79
The measure of behavioural problems is derived from mother-reported data at age 4. The measure
contains five sub-components relating to hyperactivity, emotional symptoms, conduct problems,
peer problems and a pro-social score (which is reversed as unlike for the other measures a higher
score is a positive outcome). The sample size for this measure is around 9500. More details of the
construction of the measures used and the ALSPAC study are contained in the main report.
Summary of Findings
Educational Learning Development Up to Age 5
Even by age 5 substantial variations in educational attainment are apparent across
children from different family backgrounds. Large early learning variations are associated with
parental education, family income, age of mother and numbers of siblings and gender of the
child. Children from poorest fifth of families (based on an average of incomes measured at
ages 3 and 4) have lower cognitive attainment than children from richest fifth of families by
nearly 7 percentage points in the raw data (around 10 months behind) and those with less
educated parents (no A-C grade GCSEs or higher level qualifications) are 9 points (or about a
year) behind those with degree holding parents. However, these raw results capture many
combined aspects of family background, in that for example the lower income families tend
also to be less educated. Once we draw out the separate effects of education and income, those
from less educated mothers (no A-C grade GCSEs or higher level qualifications) are 5 points
behind those with degree educated mothers and those from the poorest fifth of homes are just
over 3 points behind those from the most affluent fifth. Boys also have lower attainment than
girls, those with younger mothers are behind those with older mothers and those with more
older siblings are also behind the first born children.
Parents teaching (e.g. teaching children a number of items such as shapes, colours and
numbers) and reading to children during the pre-school period are the largest single influence
on childrens early learning. After controlling for other influences children who are rarely read
(never or once a week) to before school entry are 1.6 points behind children in households
where reading occurs everyday and those whose mothers rarely actively teach their children are
3.6 points behind. However, differences in teaching and reading do not explain very much of
the early learning deficits of children from poorer and less educated families. For instance,
parenting behaviours are the mediating influence for just 10% of the gap between children with
the highest and lowest educated groups of mothers. There is no evidence that better educated
parents teach and read to young children more effectively; they just do these things somewhat
more often. There is evidence, however, that teenage mothers engage in reading to and
teaching their children less often and these are key reasons why children of teenage mothers are
80
underachieving at age 7.
Exposure to pre-school childcare is modestly beneficial to early learning (attending
Nursery schools or classes advances child test scores at age 5 by one tenth of a standard
deviation or about 4 percentage points in the ranking of childrens attainment) but it is a minor
factor in explaining the early learning deficits observed. Full-time childcare prior to school
entry is no more beneficial than part-time but attending a pre-school containing high achieving
children is beneficial.
Centre based care at or before age 2 is as beneficial to childrens learning ( again this
advances child test scores by one tenth of a standard deviation or about 4 percentage points in
the ranking of childrens attainment). Long hours of care up to the age of 2 by unpaid carers,
such as friends and relatives, are associated with lower attainment, whilst fathers involvement
in child care before age 2 is modestly beneficial
The home environment - in terms of books and toys and the attainment of the peer
group attending the same pre-school setting both explain around 10% of the early learning
deficits of children from poorer and less educated families. The hoe environment and the social
background of those attending the same pre-school provider are both strongly related to family
income levels.
Mothers mental and physical health and her own childhood experiences are not major
influences on childrens early leaning.
Behaviour at age 5
Differences in the raw behaviour scores across children from families with different
levels of income and education are relatively small compared to those observed in cognitive
development. Children for the poorest fifth of families have Entry Assessment test scores some
7 points lower (equivalent to being 25 percentage points lower in the rankings of child
attainment) than those from the most affluent fifth of the population. Whereas for the behaviour
scores they are 5 points behind).
Mothers mental and physical health, especially stress, anxiety and self-esteem, and low
quality relationships between parents are strongly related to poor behavioural outcomes among
children. In turn these indicators of poor mental health and lack of belief that their own actions
can alter their circumstances, are strongly correlated with low income and low educational
attainment. Hence mothers mental health explains around 25 to 30% of the difference in
behavioural scores between those from less or more affluent households or high or low parental
education.
81
Parental teaching and reading also have marked influences on later behavioural
outcomes (as for learning outcomes). But, in addition, parental behaviours including a lack of
early maternal bonding, smoking in pregnancy, talking to children whilst engaged in other
activities and the child watching 6+ hours of TV a week at 18 months are also associated with
worse behaviour.
Centre based care at or before age 2 is associated with worse behaviours relative to
parental carers or child minders. Long hours of care by unpaid carers, such as friends and
relatives are also associated with worse behaviour.
The raw differences in behaviour scores between the highest and lowest education and
income groups are around 5 points different (or a standard deviation) and explained mainly
by the correlations between parenting behaviour and mothers mental and physical health and
income or education. Parenting patterns are more important in driving the differences in
behavioural outcomes, between the most or least affluent children, than they are for early
educational attainment.
82
each other and have no significant impact on outcomes at age 7. Variations in the impact of
exposure to different early learning environments immediately prior to school entry, at age 4,
disappear after two years of schooling. Children who had attended only parent-organised
playgroups were behind children who had attended nursery schools at age 5, but show no
difference in attainment by age 7 period.
Maternal physical and mental health and social support networks. These factors had little
impact on childrens early learning development at age 5, but the importance of the mothers
locus of control score, the extent to which the mother feels her choices and actions can affect
the family's circumstances, remains persistent through the early school years.
The adverse effect of poverty on childrens attainment has been established in a large
number of studies (see for example Duncan and Brooks-Gunn, 1997, Gregg and Machin,
2000).
Similarly, the positive relationship between parents and childrens educational attainment,
such that children of better educated parents achieve higher educational outcomes, has been
found to be robust in the literature (Feinstein et al, 2004).
The key importance of the childs home learning environment for cognitive development is
pointed to by a number of studies (Feinstein et al, 2004, Sylva et al, 2004).
Maternal mental health and depression has been shown to have a particular influence on
childrens behavioural development (Murray, 1992).
The positive effects on childrens development of pre-school attendance and having above
average attaining children attending the same pre-school have been documented across a
range of countries (see NICHD, 2002, Sylva et al, 2004). However, Sylva et al. findings
suggest more substantive and longer lasting effects especially for high quality care. We
were unable to address quality of care issues effectively in the study.
Policy Implications
Emerging evidence for the UK suggests that the extent of social (or intergeneration income)
mobility lessens between cohorts of children born in 1958 (NCDS) and in 1970 (BCS) see
Blanden Gregg and Machin, 2005. Additionally, Feinstein (2003) has identified that much, but far
from all, of the educational deficit of more deprived children emerges prior to age 7. This research
and other related pieces has stimulated a governmental interest in social mobility and the role of
early years experiences in shaping childrens opportunities. This piece of research looks at the
evidence from a recent birth cohort (from 1991 to 1992) to assess the extent of early learning
deficits associated with a number of dimensions of family background. The research goes on to
84
assess the role of a range of measurable proximal influences (e.g. parental behaviours, choices and
circumstances), and assess how important these are in the emerging evidence of early development
and in particular in transmitting dimensions of family background into development outcomes.
When discussing the policy implications there are instantly issues around causality. At its heart the
question is whether the activity observed as being associated with different outcomes, for example
parents reading to children, is in it self the factor that makes the difference or does it reflect
broader underlying differences between parents. So, if a policy was launched that successfully got
parents who currently do not read to their children to do so, but changed no other behaviours or
attitudes, would we observe effects on childrens attainment on the scale suggested by this study?
Alternatively, is reading to your child symptomatic of underlying differences between parents that
do not change. The simple answer is that a study such as this can not answer these questions and
what is required is experimental or pathfinder trials of initiatives (some of which may well already
exist) to assess the potential for policy to make a difference.
There are four broad areas of potential intervention, in the light of this study, that are worthy of
policy discussion or experimentation.
85
Physical Home Learning Environment
The second key area for potential intervention is one that is closely related to parental teaching
activities, and that is the physical home leaning environment. For language, literacy and maths
development this is mainly facilitated within the home through books and toys (although outings
are of minor importance). For behavioural development damp and overcrowding also play a role.
These aspects of home environment are strongly influenced by income levels. Again there are two
possible routes for influencing this. First, an indirect route is to give poorer to middle income
families more financial resources and hope that they will increase spending on such items.
Evidence from Gregg, Waldfogel and Washbrook (2004) suggests that the recent increases in tax
credits etc. have resulted in increased spending on these items and a closing of the gap for poorer
families with the more affluent. However, parents are balancing a whole set of needs for their
children and only a small share of the total increases in income goes on such items. Indeed,
spending on cars and travel, clothing (including childrens clothing) and food are clearly high
priorities for poor families, although spending on cigarettes and alcohol actually falls. A direct
route could be to provide free books and toy clubs, perhaps through Sure Start. These are targeted
but fail to allow parents to prioritise spending. Such book schemes are being tried in the UK e.g.,
Bookstart operated by the Book Trust but it is crucial that they are evaluated effectively to assess
whether they can make a difference.
86
of high quality care and its potential benefits to deprived children cannot be studied here and better
evidence should be used (such as the EPPE study).
87
88
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