This document was added or updated on 02/10/2015.

AGAINST THE ODDS: FACTORS INFLUENCING CHILD DEVELOPMENT IN TASMANIA

INTRODUCTION

Early childhood education and development has a profound and lasting impact on the development outcomes of children at the start of school and throughout their education life-course.¹ Being physically, socially, emotionally, cognitively and educationally ready to start formal schooling is an important developmental milestone in early childhood. As discussed in Factors influencing early childhood development in Tasmania, many different personal, parental, family and household factors can play a key role in how ready children are to start school. This article follows on from these findings and is based on the premise that children from lower socioeconomic households tend to present as developmentally vulnerable at the start of schooling at much higher rates than children from higher socioeconomic households. This finding has been consistently reflected in domestic and international research that has found that socioeconomic factors have a strong influence on educational outcomes.²

However, socioeconomic characteristics are not the only factors that have an influence on a child's educational outcomes. There are protective and risk factors that push certain population groups away from the norm. This article explores the factors associated with children from lower socioeconomic households having a decreased likelihood of being developmentally vulnerable at the start of formal schooling, and also looks at the factors associated with children from higher socioeconomic households having an increased likelihood of being developmentally vulnerable at the start of school.

The analysis in this article has been made possible by integrating data from the 2011 ABS Census of Population and Housing (Census) with the 2012 Australian Early Development Census (AEDC) and the 2011 National Early Childhood Education and Care Collection (NECECC). This has produced a powerful new dataset capable of providing insights on the role of parental and other socioeconomic characteristics on child development. This integrated approach leverages more information from the combined dataset than is available from the individual datasets. Importantly, it also enables analysis of the socioeconomic characteristics associated with developmental vulnerability for children from different population sub groups, and provides a basis for future research, such as expanding the analysis beyond Tasmania to national, and sub-national, levels.


DATA IN THIS ARTICLE

The AEDC is a national assessment on school readiness that is completed by teachers about children in their first year of formal schooling. This article looks at 2012 AEDC results for children enrolled in Tasmanian schools, combined with various personal, parental, family and household demographic and socioeconomic characteristics collected in the 2011 Census.

The AEDC is completed by teachers for children in their first year of full-time schooling (known as a Preparatory year or 'Prep') in Tasmania. The AEDC measures five areas or 'domains' of early childhood development:

• Physical health and wellbeing - whether children are healthy, independent, and physically ready for the school day, as well as their gross and fine motor skills
• Social competence - children's overall social competence as well as how they play, share and get along with other children
• Emotional maturity - whether children are able to concentrate during the school day, help others, are patient and not aggressive or angry
• Language and cognitive skills - mainly based on those skills necessary for school, including literacy, numeracy and memory
• Communication and general knowledge - whether children can communicate easily and effectively, and have adequate general knowledge.³

Domain scores are calculated based on teacher responses to a range of developmental and observational questions on each child. Through this process some children are classified as 'developmentally vulnerable'.⁴ For the purpose of this article, children are considered to be 'developmentally vulnerable' if they have been rated as developmentally vulnerable on one or more domains of the AEDC.

While the AEDC provides information on children in their first year of formal schooling, the NECECC was used in this study to provide data on children enrolled in preschool programs (commonly referred to as 'Kindergarten' in Tasmania) in the year prior to formal schooling. For the purpose of the NECECC, a preschool program is defined as a structured, play based learning program, delivered by a degree qualified teacher, aimed primarily at children in the year or two before they commence full-time schooling.⁵ Participation in preschool is not compulsory.

The ABS Census of Population and Housing is conducted every five years and aims to accurately measure the number and key characteristics of people who are in Australia on Census Night, and of the dwellings in which they live. Due to ABS Census data being collected in August 2011 and AEDC data being collected between May and July 2012, there is a possibility that some children's family and household characteristics may have changed between the time of the ABS Census and the AEDC.

The data used in this article is based on linked AEDC and ABS Census records. The NECECC data was included in the dataset where a corresponding ABS Census record was able to be linked. Records were linked across these datasets by finding exact matches on combinations of common variables, such as date of birth, sex, and small area geography codes. Name and address information were not available for linkage. The data has been weighted to ensure it is representative of the full Tasmanian AEDC population. There may be differences between figures in this article and those in publications that use the individual datasets or other data sources.

Socioeconomic status has been determined by looking at factors related to employment, education and financial wellbeing as they are the three dimensions common to most international and Australian approaches to defining socioeconomic indexes.⁶ Low socioeconomic status for a child was defined as being part of a household with a weekly household income between $1 and $599, where no parent was employed and the highest educational qualification of any parent in the household was Year 11 or below. High socioeconomic status for a child was defined as being part of a household with a weekly household income of $2000 or more, where at least one parent was employed and at least one parent had a Bachelor Degree or above.

A logistic regression model was built to determine whether selected characteristics had an effect on the likelihood of a child being developmentally vulnerable. The regression analysis allows the influence of each factor on a child's development to be isolated. Some results of this analysis are presented throughout this article and the full results can be found in the Appendix: Against the Odds: Factors influencing child development in Tasmania - Results of regression analysis.

For more detailed information about data sources, definitions and linkage methodologies, see the Explanatory Notes tab.


EARLY DEVELOPMENT FOR CHILDREN FROM DIFFERENT SOCIOECONOMIC BACKGROUNDS IN TASMANIA

The data used for this article shows that around one in five children in their first year of schooling in Tasmania in 2012 were developmentally vulnerable on one or more domains (22%). However, a larger proportion of children from lower socioeconomic households were developmentally vulnerable (40%). This is particularly high when compared to the low proportion of children from higher socioeconomic households who were developmentally vulnerable (11%).



PROTECTIVE FACTORS FOR CHILDREN FROM LOWER SOCIOECONOMIC HOUSEHOLDS

As shown above, a relatively large proportion of children from lower socioeconomic households were developmentally vulnerable on one or more domains in 2012 (40%). However, there were several groups of these children that had a reduced proportion of developmental vulnerability for this otherwise relatively disadvantaged population. These groups are shown in the graph and described in the points below.


The factors associated with a decreased proportion of developmentally vulnerable children from lower socioeconomic households are listed (in order of effect size) in more detail below. Lesser proportions of children from lower socioeconomic households were developmentally vulnerable if they⁷:

• Had parents who were very engaged in their schooling (11%) compared with somewhat engaged (47%) or not engaged (74%)
• Were read to, or encouraged in their reading, very regularly at home (13%) compared with somewhat regularly (45%) or not regularly (80%)
• Were part of a couple family (27%) compared with a lone parent family (42%)
• Were a girl (29%) compared with being a boy (55%)
• Had a mother aged 25-29 years at the time of the child's birth (33%) compared with 15-19 years (39%), 20-24 years (40%), 30-34 years (46%), or 30 years or more (50%)
• Started school aged six years or older (33%) compared with aged younger than five and a half years (39%) or five and a half to less than six years (44%)
• Were living in a family with two children (37%) compared with four or more children (39%), three children (41%), or one child (48%)
• Were enrolled in 1 to 10 or 11 to 14 hours of preschool per week (38%) compared with being enrolled in 15 or more hours per week (44%)
• Were identified as non-Indigenous (39%) compared with identified as being of Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander origin (44%).

While each group listed here was individually related to a reduced prevalence of developmental vulnerability for children from lower socioeconomic households, some of the groups were also related to each other. Regression analysis allows us to isolate the effect of individual variables, and determine which of the relationships are significant. The following factors had statistically significant effects on the likelihood of children from lower socioeconomic households being classified as developmentally vulnerable.

In particular, the odds of children from lower socioeconomic households being developmentally vulnerable on one or more domain were:

• 5.3 times higher if they were not regularly read to, or encouraged in their reading, at home compared with those read to somewhat regularly, and conversely 90% less likely if they were read to very regularly compared with those read to somewhat regularly
• 3.7 times higher if their parents were not engaged in the child's schooling compared with if they were only somewhat engaged, and conversely 91% lower for very engaged parents compared with parents that were somewhat engaged
• 2.5 times higher if they were a boy rather than a girl.

Some of the above variables also had statistically significant effects on developmental vulnerability for children from higher socioeconomic households; this is discussed in more detail in the sections below.


RISK FACTORS FOR CHILDREN FROM HIGHER SOCIOECONOMIC HOUSEHOLDS

As shown at the beginning of this article, the proportion of children from higher socioeconomic households who were developmentally vulnerable on one or more domains of measurement was quite low in 2012 (11%). However, several factors were associated with an increased risk of being developmentally vulnerable for this otherwise relatively less disadvantaged group. Note that this is a different angle to the analysis for children from lower socioeconomic families which looked at protective factors against developmental vulnerability. These factors are shown in the graph and points below.


The factors associated with an increased proportion of developmentally vulnerable children from higher socioeconomic households are listed (in order of effect size) in more detail below. Greater proportions of children from higher socioeconomic households were developmentally vulnerable if they⁸:

• Were read to, or encouraged in their reading, only somewhat regularly at home (52%) compared with very regularly (8%)
• Had parents who were only somewhat engaged in their schooling (43%) compared with very engaged (8%)
• Were living in a family with one child (18%) or four or more children (15%) compared with two children (11%) or three children (8%)
• Were enrolled in 1 to 10 hours of preschool per week (18%) compared with 20 hours or more (12%), 11 to 14 hours (11%), or 15 to 19 hours per week (9%)
• Were a boy (15%) compared with being a girl (8%).

The regression analysis shows that only the following factors had a statistically significant effect on children from higher socioeconomic households being developmentally vulnerable on one or more domains.

In particular, the odds of children from higher socioeconomic households being developmentally vulnerable on one or more domains were:

• 93% less likely if they were read to, or encouraged in their reading, very regularly at home, compared with those read to only somewhat regularly at home or not regularly
• 89% less likely if their parents were very engaged in the child's schooling compared with those that were only somewhat engaged or not engaged
• 1.9 times higher if they were a boy rather than a girl.

CONCLUSION: PROTECTIVE AND RISK FACTORS FOR DEVELOPMENT AGAINST THE NORM

As shown in the sections above, there were several groups of children from lower socioeconomic households that had a reduced risk of being developmentally vulnerable and several groups of children from higher socioeconomic households that had an increased risk of being developmentally vulnerable. The factors that had statistically significant effects on both socioeconomic groups were parental engagement with the child's schooling and whether a child was read to, or encouraged in their reading, at home. Higher levels of parental engagement and reading to children very regularly were protective factors against developmental vulnerability, while lower engagement and less regular reading were risk factors of developmental vulnerability.

A child's sex was also a common factor. For children from lower socioeconomic household, girls were less likely to be developmentally vulnerable than boys. Similarly, for children from higher socioeconomic households, boys were more likely to be associated with developmental vulnerability than girls. Further analysis of the data in this article has shown that parents were more likely to be very engaged in the schooling of girls and more likely to read to girls very regularly compared with boys. This finding was consistent for children living in both lower and higher socioeconomic households. The disparity in outcomes attributed to a child's sex reflects other research showing boys having lower academic outcomes than girls; with various social and behavioural drivers attributed to this disparity.⁹


LOOKING AHEAD

This article has shown how integrated data, in particular socioeconomic information from the Census of Population and Housing and information about developmental vulnerability from the Australian Early Development Census, can add new and rich information to the education evidence base for policy and research. Integrating data has the additional benefits of being less resource intensive than collecting new information through surveys or designed administrative collections as well as encouraging collaborative work and developing partnerships between the agencies involved in the work.

The focus of this article has been to look at what factors influence developmental outcomes against what normally might be expected for children from lower or higher socioeconomic households. Some interesting and informative results were found. However, there is considerable scope for further analysis in this area. In particular, expanding the analysis beyond Tasmania to national, and sub-national, levels would be valuable. Also, the inclusion of more factors, such as school achievement results over time, and deeper analysis would paint a more comprehensive picture.


END NOTES

1. Brinkman et al. 2014, The predictive validity of the AEDC: Predicting later cognitive and behavioural outcomes; Goldfield, S et al. 2014, Early childhood education and care and the transition to school; Centre for Community Child Health, Kids in Communities Study; Levine Coley, R, McPherran Lombardi, C, & Votruba-Drzal, E 2013, 'Early education and care experiences and cognitive skills development: a comparative perspective between Australian and American children', Family Matters, Vol. 93 June 2013, pp. 36-49; Accessed 20 August 2015
2. AEDC, The impact of socio-economics and school readiness for life course educational trajectories, Accessed 30 July 2015
3. AEDC, The AEDC domains, Accessed 4 August 2015
4. AEDC, FAQ for researchers, Accessed 17 August 2015
5. ABS, Preschool Education, Australia, 2014 (see Background information), cat. no. 4240.0, Accessed 7 September 2015
6. ABS 2008, Information Paper: An Introduction to Socio-Economic Indexes for Areas (SEIFA), 2006, Accessed 20 August 2015
7. It should be noted that this is not an exhaustive list of potential factors associated with developmental vulnerability. There may be other impacting factors that have not been included as part of this article or that were not measured in the available data.
8. See end note 7.
9. Henry, K, Lagos, A & Berndt, F, 'Bridging the literacy gap between boys and girls: An opportunity for the National Year of Reading 2012', Scholarship-In-Practice, The Australian Library Journal, Vol. 61 No. 2, 2012