Growing Up in Scotland: children’s social, emotional and behavioural characteristics at entry to primary school
Year: 2010
Type: other
Abstract: Characteristics of children with social, emotional and behavioural difficulties at age of school entry• The socio-economic characteristics which were related to difficulties at school entry varied according to the subscale being examined.Overall, these socio-economic characteristics had limited bearing on behavioural outcomes at school entry.Level of household income was the measure most consistently related to behavioural development with children in lower income households at higher risk of difficulties with conduct, emotional development and hyperactivity than those in higher income households.• Health and development factors also affected different behavioural domains in different ways.The condition of the child's general health over the period from age 2 to age 5 was consistently and strongly associated with behavioural difficulties at age of school entry.Children with poorer general health tended to have greater behavioural difficulties than those with better health.• Delays in motor development at age 2 were associated with having more emotional difficulties at school entry.Delays in language development at age 2 were associated with greater difficulties in hyperactivity and peer problems as well as a high score on the total difficulties scale.• Parenting factors, such as use of particular discipline styles or taking children on social visits, tended to be more related to issues of conduct and hyperactivity.Those children who experienced no shouting or smacking, higher levels of parent-child social interaction, and a higher frequency of social visits were less likely to score in the problem ranges of conduct and hyperactivity scales.• No statistically significant differences in difficulty scores were found according to differences in children's age at school entry. The continuity of social, emotional and behavioural characteristics• Children's difficult behaviour tends to decrease, and pro-social behaviour increase as they move from the pre-to primary school stage although the changes are small.Emotional problems show an increase between pre-school and entry to primary.• There is a strong correlation between a child's total difficulties scores at pre-school and primary school suggesting that the particular social, emotional and behavioural characteristics which children exhibit at pre-school remain, for the most part, at the point they start primary school.• The strongest correlation in sub-scales occurs on the hyperactivity score suggesting that this is the behaviour least likely to change during that period.
Authors: Paul Bradshaw, Sarah Tipping
Language: English
Subfield: Clinical Psychology
Field: Psychology
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W1607365092