Pippa MyringNew figures released today by the Centre for Longitudinal Studies reveal that the development of one in four children in the UK is being negatively impacted by problematic home and family lives. Focusing on the first decade of the twenty-first century, the study carried out by the Institute of Education at the University of London, looks at the type of challenges and difficulties facing young children, and looks in detail at the specific challenges facing children from ethnic groups.
The research, titled the Millennium Cohort Study, highlighted the following ten risk factors which could damage a child’s development: overcrowded housing; having a teenager mother; if one or both parents suffer from depression, physical disability, low basic skills, or drug and alcohol abuse; financial difficulties, unemployment, and domestic violence.
The Millennium Cohort study is following children within the UK, from nine months, to three, five and seven years old, aiming to continue following participants development into adulthood. The study covers topics from childcare and school choice, to behavioural and cognitive development, to parents’ education, employment, income, and housing.
Of the eighteen thousand families with young children who took part in the study, 28% faced two or more of the above risk factors. The study found that children from families facing multiple difficulties were most likely to experience damaging effects to their development. Developmental issues are less likely to occur in children who suffer only one, or non of the outlined risk factors.
Concerning families from ethnic minorities, the research discovered that Bangladeshi children are more likely to come from families facing multiple difficulties, and that 48% experienced two or more risk factors, with financial hardship occurring most frequently. This is comparable to only 20% of Indian children facing multiple risk factors.
Poor developmental and vocabulary scores were found in children ages three and five who were facing two or more risk factors, compared to those falling under one or non of the risk categories. Children from families who faced multiple challenges alongside having a low income performed worse in most developmental categories.
Developmental categories include cognitive development, vocabulary development, and behavioural development, which identifies five aspects of development: emotional symptoms, conduct problems, hyperactivity, peer problems, and prosocial behaviour.
Although there was found to be no common pattern concerning which combination of risks were most prevalent within families, parental depression was found to be the most common risk factor overall.
Despite such bleak statistics, the study found that only one in seven children face two or more risk factors, only one in fourteen families were found to be facing three risk factors, and less than 2% of children experience five or more risk factors.
Findings from the research can assist policy makers in tackling poor development in children in relation to exposure to risk factors. However, this is not a straight forward process due to the number of risk factors found, and their diversity. Researchers have expressed concern that policies which tackle specific combinations of risk factors may only reach a limited amount of children as any number of families can be effected by any number of combinations of the difficulties and challenges identified.
What do you make of the Millennium Consortium Study findings? How do you think the risk factors outlined should be combated to promote child development?
