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The parenting literature has focused on teenage motherhood but less is known about older mothers. In industrialized societies more women are giving birth later in life. The study examined whether there are any age trends in the use of discipline, home organization, provision of learning opportunities, maternal responsivity and mother child relationships treating maternal age at birth as a continuous construct. The sample was from two national UK cohorts with common assessments at three years (N = 24,610). Withholding treats or attention as discipline and parent/child conflict decreased as maternal age increased. Harsh discipline such as smacking was low for teenage mothers, highest in the mid-twenties after which it declined. Household chaos decreased with maternal age up to age 30 after which it was likely to be higher. Positive and responsive parenting generally increased with maternal age up to about age 40 after which it plateaued. Thus overall, while older motherhood is associated with medical risks for mother and child it should not present problems in relation to parenting during the preschool years. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Purpose: Neighborhood features have been linked with adult mental-health problems, particularly depression. A recent comprehensive review indicated structural neighborhood features derived from data sources such as the census may be less important predictors of mental health problems than social processes but that most studies lack multiple neighborhood measures. The aim of the study is to investigate relations between multiple neighborhood factors (observations, interviewer ratings, UK Census data) and maternal mental-health problems. Methods: 14,700 mothers with 9-month-old infants living in 195 deprived neighborhoods in England were interviewed, neighborhoods were observed and census data on employment, ethnic background and housing tenancy utilized. Results: Lower (interviewer-rated) neighborhood quality and lower neighborhood prosperity predicted more mother-reported mental-health problems net of family-level predictors. Contrary to expectations detailed observations did not contribute additionally. Conclusions: Neighborhood conditions, though not as important as family factors and maternal characteristics, are sufficiently important to consider when planning mental health services; they can be assessed at relatively low cost by census data or professionals' ratings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The early identification of young children's special educational needs (SEN), as well as the development of specific strategies to support those children identified with special needs, are increasingly recognised as crucial to facilitating good adjustment to school and to ensuring that such children are helped to reach their full potential in education. Using a large national sample of young children in England whose developmental progress was followed up from pre-school, this study investigates which child, family, home and pre-school factors can be viewed as risk or protective factors for later SEN-status at age 10. The experience of high-quality pre-school education is shown to reduce the likelihood of a child being identified as experiencing SEN in the long run. Teachers' assessments of SEN are found to be strongly related to children's reading and mathematics attainment, but other factors also predict SEN, including a child's age within a year group. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In studies of child development, the combined effect of multiple risks acting in unison has been represented in a variety of ways. This investigation builds upon this preceding work and presents a new procedure for capturing the combined effect of multiple risks. A representative sample of 2,899 British children had their cognitive development measured at 36 and 58 months of age along with 10 potential risks during this period of development. Comparing a cumulative index of these risks against the previously undocumented alternative of confirmatory factor analysis using formative measurement, this study found differences favouring the factor analysis. The factor analysis procedure demonstrated greater predictive power of children's cognitive development while it systematically tested two of the assumptions implicit in cumulative risk indices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The study reported here investigates the role of pre-school education as a protective factor in the development of children who are at risk due to environmental and individual factors. This investigation builds upon earlier research by examining different kinds of 'quality' in early education and tests the hypothesis that pre-schools of high quality can moderate the impacts of risks upon cognitive development. Cognitive development was measured in 2857 English pre-schoolers at 36 and 58 months of age, together with 22 individual risks to children's development, and assessments were made of the quality of their pre-school provision. Multilevel Structural Equation Modelling revealed that: the global quality of pre-school can moderate the effects of familial risk (such as poverty); the relationships between staff and children can moderate the effects of child level risk (such as low birth weight); and the specific quality of curricular provision can moderate the effects of both. Policy makers need to take quality into account in their efforts to promote resilience in young 'at risk' children through early childhood services. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents an observational study which examines the effects of fully-established Sure Start Local Programmes (SSLP) on three year old children and their families living in England. Three year old children and their families from disadvantaged Sure Start Local Programmes (SSLPs) were compared with those from similarly deprived areas in England who took part in the Millenium Cohort Study. 14 outcomes were studied including children's immunisations, accidents, language development, and positive and negative social behaviours. Researchers found that beneficial effects were associated with five of 14 outcomes. They concluded that children and families benefited from living in SSLP areas.

This study investigates the influence of aspects of home and preschool environments upon literacy and numeracy achievement at school entry and at the end of the 3rd year of school. Individuals with unexpected performance pathways (by forming demographically adjusted groups: overachieving, average, and underachieving) were identified in order to explore the effects of the home learning environment and preschool variables on child development. Multilevel models applied to hierarchical data allow the groups that differ with regard to expected performance to be created at the child and preschool center levels. These multilevel analyses indicate powerful effects for the home learning environment and important effects of specific preschool centers at school entry. Although reduced, such effects remain several years later. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article focuses on the design and application of an instrument, the Programme Variability Rating Scale (PVRS), to measure the effectiveness of a complex social intervention in the UK. Sure Start aimed to improve outcomes for children aged under four years living in disadvantaged areas on a wide range of health, educational and social indicators. The PVRS was devised for use in the National Evaluation of Sure Start (NESS) to measure programme proficiency. It consisted of 18 dimensions (eg. parental empowerment, user identification, flexibility of service delivery), each with seven levels of proficiency. It was applied to 150 Sure Start local programmes involved in a longitudinal study of the impact of the intervention on a range of child and parental outcomes. Ratings of more or less proficient processes were related, using discriminant-function analysis, with the impact outcomes from the cross-sectional study of almost 20,000 children. The 18 dimensions of proficiency of the PVRS made a significant differentiation between the most and least effective programmes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: An area-based initiative, Sure Start Local Programmes (SSLPs), was established by the UK government to reduce social exclusion through improving the well-being of children aged 0–3 years and their families in disadvantaged communities; a true community intervention in that all children under four and their families in specified areas served as targets of universal services. A national evaluation examined the links between variation in programme implementation and effectiveness. Methods: Data gathered from multiple sources produced measures of implementation in terms of proficiency, services and staffing. Measures of programme impact on child/parenting outcomes derived from multilevel models, controlling for child, family and area characteristics, were identified to demonstrate programme effectiveness. Results: Some modest linkage between programme implementation (e.g., proficiency, empowerment of parents and staff, identification of users) and effectiveness for child and parenting outcomes. Conclusions: Overall proficiency and specific aspects of implementation may influence effectiveness, which should guide the design of other child, family and community services. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There is growing concern about violent behaviour in schools, involving students, staff and/or parents. A survey of 1777 primary schools (for children aged 5 to 11) throughout England, most in areas of social and economic deprivation, found more disorder in neighbourhoods with greater deprivation. More disorder was also observed when there was more school-level disadvantage (e.g. students receiving free meals), larger school size and more children in need of special education services. Despite difficulties in drawing causal inferences from correlational data, the fact that more disorder significantly predicted lower school achievement for students at 7 and 11 in standardized English, mathematics and science assessments even once school characteristics and neighbourhood deprivation were taken into account is judged noteworthy. Potential confounding factors are considered in the discussion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Disadvantaged communities are increasingly the target for interventions. Sure Start was launched in England in 1999 to tackle child poverty and improve child and family services, with Sure Start Local Programmes (SSLPs) targeted at relatively small areas of marked deprivation. However, they are located in a range of different types of communities where they may provide services to very different resident populations. They are all disadvantaged but underlying that label there are specific patterns of variability, relevant for service provision. To evaluate the implementation, impact, and cost-effectiveness of SSLPs, or other area-based initiatives, it is important to consider ways in which they can be grouped meaningfully according to these patterns. Data were collected from administrative databases to describe SSLPs in terms of demography, deprivation, and aspects of child and family functioning and grouped using cluster analysis. Five different ‘types’ of SSLP community were identified, based on their socio-demographic and economic characteristics; typified by more, less or average deprivation in relation to all SSLPs, and in terms of the proportion of ethnic minority families resident in the areas. The groups differ in terms of community measures of child health, educational attainment, school disorder and child welfare and their prediction from demographic community characteristics. The groupings have implications for service delivery and the evaluation of area-based initiatives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores the impact of pre-school experience on young children's cognitive attainments at entry to primary school and analyses data collected as part of a wider longitudinal study, the Effective Provision of Pre-school Education (EPPE) project, which followed a large sample of young children attending 141 pre-school centres drawn from six types of provider in five English regions. The article compares the characteristics and attainments of the pre-school sample with those of an additional 'home' sample (children who had not attended pre-school) recruited at entry to reception. Multilevel analyses of relationships between child, parent and home environment characteristics and children's attainments in pre-reading, early number concepts and language skills are presented. Duration of time in pre-school is found to have a significant and positive impact on attainment over and above important influences such as family socio-economic status, income, mother's qualification level, ethnic and language background. The research also points to the separate and significant influence of the home learning environment. It is concluded that pre-school can play an important part in combating social exclusion by offering disadvantaged children, in particular, a better start to primary school. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Two prominent theories in evolutionary biology have stressed the role of social contexts in the evolution of primate cognition. One theory holds that cognition evolved in the context of individuals having to keep track of their interactions with a variety of conspecifics. In the other theory, cognition evolved in the contexts of familiar and close social relationships. In this paper, we present two experiments examining the effects of varied, familiar, and close social contacts on preschool children's literate language and story re-reading. We hypothesized, based on developmental evolutionary theory, that closeness, in the form of increased familiarity and friendship, would maximize children's expression of emotional terms, conflict/resolution cycles, collaborative responses, literate language, and story re-readings. In Study 1, children were exposed to one of two conditions. In the more familiar condition, initially unfamiliar children interacted with the same peer across four separate observations. In the less familiar, varied condition, a focal child interacted with a different unfamiliar peer on four separate occasions. Consistent with predictions, children in the more familiar condition increased their use of emotional terms and literate language and story re-reading with time. In Study 2, a familiar group (as defined in Study 1) was compared with children in bestfriend dyads. As predicted, friends outperformed familiar peers initially, but between-group differences decreased across time while children's performance in the familiar group increased across time. Results are discussed in terms of the role of familiarity in the evolution of cooperation and cognition. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background Language is a critical development accomplishment of early childhood, enabling later literacy, education and employment. Previous studies have highlighted socioeconomic inequalities in the amount parents speak to their child, with researchers estimating by age four parents from professional backgrounds spoke 30 million more words to their children, than parents who were on welfare. Methods This study utilises innovative speech recognition technology called Language Environment Analysis (LENA), which counts the number of words children hear and speak over a day. LENA data is collected once every six months from 6 – 48 months of age, across two cohorts of children who are stratified by two levels of maternal education to examine the effects across socioeconomic groups. Results Results from the first three waves of data collection demonstrate that differences between education groups in the number of adult words spoken to the child are not evident until the children are 18 months old. Average change in adult word counts per day by maternal education show there is a difference of 17 words at 6 months, 568 words at 12 months and 3,851 words at 18 months. Conclusions This is the first study to be able to identify the age when socioeconomic differences in the amount of talk emerge. This has significant implications for the timing of interventions aiming to reduce the word gap, suggesting targeting the implementation of programs prior to 18 months. Key messages Socioeconomic differences in the amount parents talk to their children do not emerge until children are 18 months old. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of European Journal of Psychology of Education - EJPE (Springer Science & Business Media B.V.) is the property of Springer Nature and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of European Journal of Psychology of Education - EJPE (Springer Science & Business Media B.V.) is the property of Springer Nature and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of European Journal of Psychology of Education - EJPE (Springer Science & Business Media B.V.) is the property of Springer Nature and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Women who become mothers under the age of 20 are usually thought to be at greater risk of health and social problems. The authors argue that such a prevailing view has become institutionalised in the approaches of practitioners and researchers. They examine the ideological and factual bases of such an attitude towards teenage mothers and conclude that ideology is dominant. Suggestions are made as to how this might be overcome to allow a more balanced approach to research about young motherhood. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper reviews research on playgroups in the United Kingdom. Subjects covered include the geographical distribution of playgroups; the backgrounds of families who use them; the concept and practice of parental involvement; the position of playgroup workers; and the experience of children in playgroups. The review finds that the majority of children attend playgroup at some stage, mostly for 2 or 3 half‐day sessions per week. Parental involvement is higher in playgroups than in other pre‐school services, although there is much variation. Attendance at preschool appears to have benefits to the child, although the evidence is not such as to show whether playgroups are better or worse than other forms of provision in this respect. The review concludes that more research needs to be carried out into the provision and effectiveness of services for under‐5s. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The widely and internationally replicated socioeconomic status (SES) gradient of executive function (EF) implies that intervention approaches may do well to extrapolate conditions and practices from contexts that generate better child outcomes (in this case, higher SES circumstances) and translate these to contexts with comparatively poorer outcomes (often low‐SES populations). Yet, can the reverse also be true? Using data from equivalent assessments of 1,092 pre‐schoolers' EFs in South Africa and Australia, we evaluated: the SES gradient of EF within each sample; and whether this SES gradient extended cross‐culturally. The oft‐found EF‐SES gradients were replicated in both samples. However, contrary to the inferences of EF‐SES associations found nationally, the most highly disadvantaged South African subsample outperformed middle‐ and high‐SES Australian pre‐schoolers on two of three EFs. This suggests the possibility of EF‐protective and ‐promotive practices within low‐ and middle‐income countries that may aid understandings of the nature and promotion of EFs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective To evaluate the effects of Sure Start local programmes (SSLPs) on children and their families. To assess whether variations in the effectiveness of SSLPs are due to differences in implementation. Design Quasi-experimental cross sectional study using interviews with mothers and cognitive assessment of children aged 36 months who speak English. Setting Socially deprived communities in England: 150 communities with ongoing SSLPs and 50 comparison communities. Participants Mothers of 12 575 children aged 9 months and 3927 children aged 36 months in SSLP areas; mothers of 1509 children aged 9 months and 1101 children aged 36 months in comparison communities. Outcome measures Mothers' reports of community services and local area, family functioning and parenting skills, child health and development, and verbal ability at 36 months. Results Differences between SSLP areas and comparison areas were limited, small, and varied by degree of social deprivation. SSLPs had beneficial effects on non-teenage mothers (better parenting, better social functioning in children) and adverse effects on children of teenage mothers (poorer social functioning) and children of single parents or parents who did not work (lower verbal ability). SSLPs led by health services were slightly more effective than other SSLPs. Conclusion SSLPs seem to benefit relatively less socially deprived parents (who have greater personal resources) and their children but seem to have an adverse effect on the most disadvantaged children. Programmes led by health services seem to be more effective than programmes led by other agencies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]