Family:
■ If English was not the child’s first language, this was associated with lower co-
operation/conformity, and lower cognitive development scores.
■ Family size was found to be significant. ‘Singleton’ children were rated higher on anti-social
behaviour than children with siblings. Children with one or two siblings scored higher on co-
operation/conformity. Children with three or more siblings scored lower on peer sociability
and confidence. For social/behavioural development, having one or two siblings but not
more, was most advantageous.
■ Children with three or more siblings scored lower on cognitive development. It could be
argued that in larger families, parents may give less attention to individual children. This
decreased individual attention from parents may be the reason for the effects on cognitive
development. Single children (singletons) showed no difference to those with 2 or 3 siblings
in terms of cognitive development.
Child:
■ Gender had several significant effects. Girls showed more co-operation/conformity, peer
sociability and confidence. Girls also had higher cognitive development scores. These
results suggest that pre-school gender differences are precursors of later gender differences
often found in school.
■ Aspects of health had some slight effects in, that; children with more perinatal health
problems (first two months) had lower cooperation/conformity. Also children with low birth
weights had lower cognitive development scores. Where children had previous
developmental problems (e.g. speech problems, late to walk), they were more likely to have
lower cognitive development scores. They also had lower cooperation/conformity, peer
sociability and confidence. These may reflect a general developmental delay in children with
health related problems.
■ Where children had previous behaviour problems reported by the parent, they had lower
cooperation/conformity, peer sociability and confidence, and increased anti-social behaviour
reported by their pre-school carers. This indicates that early behaviour problems observed at
home continue into the pre-school setting.
■ The effects on cognitive development of belonging to a particular ethnic group are primarily
mediated by language. Several ethnic groups showed lower cognitive scores than the White
UK group. These were White European, Black African, Pakistani, Bangladeshi, ‘Other’ and
Mixed Heritage. However, an analysis of non-verbal scores showed no effects for whether
English was a first language and all ethnic group effects except one disappeared. Those
children of Bangladeshi heritage had lower non-verbal scores than children of White UK
heritage, but the size of this effect was considerably smaller than when verbal scores were
included.
■ It is possible that language or communication difficulties may mediate ethnic effects on the
social/behavioural measures in that these depend upon ratings of children made by pre-
school staff. There were some ethnic group differences associated with anti-social and
worried/upset behaviour. Black Caribbean, Black African and Mixed Heritage children were
reported as showing more anti-social behaviour than White UK children. Black Caribbean
children were rated as showing more worried/upset behaviours and White European children
as showing less than White UK children. However these ethnic group effects on
social/behavioural development occurred in weak regression models and should be
interpreted with caution.
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