Skills, capabilities and inequalities at school entry in a disadvantaged community

Doyle, Orla; McEntee, Louise; McNamara, Kelly

doi:10.1007/s10212-011-0072-7

Cited by 10 publications

(7 citation statements)

References 82 publications

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“…The treatment aims to improve the health and development of children by intervening during pregnancy and working with families until the children start school at age 4/5. The program was developed in response to evidence that children from the catchment area were lagging behind their peers in terms of cognitive and non-cognitive skills at school entry [65]. PFL is a manualized program which is grounded in the theories of human attachment [66], socio-ecological development [67], and social-learning [36].…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Can Early Intervention Improve Maternal Well-Being? Evidence from a Randomized Controlled Trial

et al. 2017

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ObjectiveThis study estimates the effect of a targeted early childhood intervention program on global and experienced measures of maternal well-being utilizing a randomized controlled trial design. The primary aim of the intervention is to improve children’s school readiness skills by working directly with parents to improve their knowledge of child development and parenting behavior. One potential externality of the program is well-being benefits for parents given its direct focus on improving parental coping, self-efficacy, and problem solving skills, as well as generating an indirect effect on parental well-being by targeting child developmental problems.MethodsParticipants from a socio-economically disadvantaged community are randomly assigned during pregnancy to an intensive 5-year home visiting parenting program or a control group. We estimate and compare treatment effects on multiple measures of global and experienced well-being using permutation testing to account for small sample size and a stepdown procedure to account for multiple testing.ResultsThe intervention has no impact on global well-being as measured by life satisfaction and parenting stress or experienced negative affect using episodic reports derived from the Day Reconstruction Method (DRM). Treatment effects are observed on measures of experienced positive affect derived from the DRM and a measure of mood yesterday.ConclusionThe limited treatment effects suggest that early intervention programs may produce some improvements in experienced positive well-being, but no effects on negative aspects of well-being. Different findings across measures may result as experienced measures of well-being avoid the cognitive biases that impinge upon global assessments.

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Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Can Early Intervention Improve Maternal Well-Being? Evidence from a Randomized Controlled Trial

et al. 2017

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“…The PFL program aimed to improve children’s health and development by intervening during pregnancy and working with families until the children started school. The manualized program was developed by local service providers and community groups in response to evidence that children from the catchment area lagged behind their peers in terms of school readiness skills, including physical health and wellbeing, social and emotional development, approaches to learning, language development and cognition [ 50 ]. Grounded in attachment, ecological systems, and social learning theories, the intervention consisted of regular home visits delivered by mentors.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Can Targeted Intervention Mitigate Early Emotional and Behavioral Problems?: Generating Robust Evidence within Randomized Controlled Trials

et al. 2016

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This study examined the impact of a targeted Irish early intervention program on children’s emotional and behavioral development using multiple methods to test the robustness of the results. Data on 164 Preparing for Life participants who were randomly assigned into an intervention group, involving home visits from pregnancy onwards, or a control group, was used to test the impact of the intervention on Child Behavior Checklist scores at 24-months. Using inverse probability weighting to account for differential attrition, permutation testing to address small sample size, and quantile regression to characterize the distributional impact of the intervention, we found that the few treatment effects were largely concentrated among boys most at risk of developing emotional and behavioral problems. The average treatment effect identified a 13% reduction in the likelihood of falling into the borderline clinical threshold for Total Problems. The interaction and subgroup analysis found that this main effect was driven by boys. The distributional analysis identified a 10-point reduction in the Externalizing Problems score for boys at the 90th percentile. No effects were observed for girls or for the continuous measures of Total, Internalizing, and Externalizing problems. These findings suggest that the impact of this prenatally commencing home visiting program may be limited to boys experiencing the most difficulties. Further adoption of the statistical methods applied here may help to improve the internal validity of randomized controlled trials and contribute to the field of evaluation science more generally.Trial Registration: ISRCTN Registry ISRCTN04631728

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“…This is a time at which children convey pride in their emerging skills and competence (Peters, 2000), including their toileting (Harrison & Murray, 2015). As shame and embarrassment may cause school avoidance (Fereday et al, 2011), addressing toileting may be particularly pertinent, perhaps even more so in settings of socioeconomic disadvantage, where inequalities in competencies and well-being are already apparent at school entry (Doyle, McEntee, & McNamara, 2012; Lee & Burkham, 2002) and tend to widen further as children progress (Alexander, Entwisle, & Olson, 2001). Allowing children to decide when they would like to go to the bathroom can empower them during school transition (Loizou, 2011).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“Bursting” to Go and Other Experiences

Tatlow‐Golden

O’Farrelly

Booth

et al. 2016

The Journal of School Nursing

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Children's use of the toilet at school, although rarely explored, is an important facet of school experience with consequences for physical and psychological health. A mixed methods study investigated views of 25 children (4-5 years) regarding potential stressors in the first school year, including views of toileting, in Dublin, Ireland. Despite very positive responses to school, most responses to toileting (15 of 25) were mixed or negative. Although some liked to go, or noted the toilets were clean, most indicated delayed toilet use ("bursting" to go) and ambivalent or negative experiences such as fear of not identifying the right toilet, fear of being alone, lack of privacy, and potential bullying. Many children did not expect to receive help from the teacher. As delaying toilet use can have lasting health consequences, teacher-nurse collaboration could be used to develop whole-school policies to support children's early adjustment in this sensitive area of functioning.

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Skills, capabilities and inequalities at school entry in a disadvantaged community

Cited by 10 publications

References 82 publications

Can Early Intervention Improve Maternal Well-Being? Evidence from a Randomized Controlled Trial

Can Early Intervention Improve Maternal Well-Being? Evidence from a Randomized Controlled Trial

Can Targeted Intervention Mitigate Early Emotional and Behavioral Problems?: Generating Robust Evidence within Randomized Controlled Trials

“Bursting” to Go and Other Experiences

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