Health and environmental effects on the academic readiness of school-age children.

Abstract

Secondary analysis was used to examine how health and environmental risk affect mathematics and reading readiness in a sample of 867 5-and 6-year-old children from the National Longitudinal Survey of ^buth. Measures of risk included low birth weight, length of hospitalization at birth, rehospitalization during the first year of life, family income, maternal education, and the quality of the home environment. Although academic readiness was largely explained by environmental risk, child morbidity had a significant independent impact on reading performance. Furthermore, interaction analyses indicated that child morbidity was predictive of poor mathematics performance only for children from impoverished homes. In contrast, results also indicated that low birth weight children may be less able to benefit from higher levels of maternal education in terms of reading performance. These findings are discussed in the context of developmental risk.Children who experience poor early health or who are raised in an impoverished environment are at risk for developmental compromise (Aylward,

The role of health and social factors in education outcome: A record-linked electronic birth cohort analysis

“…Our review of the literature identified seven previous studies that specifically examined the impact of unplanned hospital inpatient admissions on educational outcome. [1,2,48–52] Consistent with our findings, O’Brien Caughy’s analysis of secondary data in the U.S.A. showed that inpatient hospital admissions during the first year of life was associated with lower scores on reading recognition, partially explained by differences in levels of maternal education and the home environment [1]. Kull et al tested the associations between child development at age five years and indicators of physical health during childhood (including acute conditions and unplanned hospitalisations) in a large national birth cohort of children in Boston U.S.A. [2].…”

“…The determinants of educational outcomes in children are multifactorial, with complex interactions between various biological, social and environmental factors. Most previous research has either measured health status in children using a combination of chronic health conditions and any hospital admission [1–2] or looked at the impact of specific chronic conditions such as diabetes, sickle cell disease, cardiovascular disorders, asthma, ADHD, autism, seizure disorders, with conflicting results [3–5]. There is limited previous research on the effects of acute, transient conditions that lead to unplanned hospital admission on educational attainment, and previous published literature mainly look only at specific conditions.…”

Incorporating Health into Studies of Political Behavior

“…Large bodies of research show that child health is related to early cognitive ability, which is strongly correlated with adult cognitive performance and eventual socioeconomic status (e.g., O’Brien Caughy 1996). Michael (2004) shows that birth weight is positively associated with cognitive test scores, even in the presence of controls for parental resources.…”

Health Selection and the Process of Social Stratification: The Effect of Childhood Health on Socioeconomic Attainment

“…Research has also linked early health to factors that play important indirect roles in socioeconomic attainment. For example, poor childhood health has been linked to poor childhood cognitive development and achievement (Boardman et al 2002;Edwards and Grossman 1979;Lichtenstein et al 1993;Matte et al 2001;O'Brien Caughy 1996;Richards et al 2001;Sorensen et al 1997;Wadsworth 1986) and lower rates of high school completion (Conley and Bennett 2000;Wadsworth 1986). A few studies have also explicitly attempted to discern the impact of early-life health on adult SES attainment and social mobility directly, though with mixed results.…”