Background
Methods
Participants
Study sample characteristic | Percentage |
---|---|
Boys | 51% |
English as main home language | 86% |
Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander | 3.8% |
Mothers with incomplete high school education | 22% |
Mothers with university education | 28% |
Attending preschool program at 4–5 years | 95% |
M (SD) | |
Child age at 4–5 year data collection | 56.9 months (2.65) |
Child age at 6–7 year data collection | 81.9 months (2.96) |
Household income per week | $1661.93AUD ($1294.05) |
Measures
Construct | Respondent | Item |
---|---|---|
Impulsive Aggression | Parent and teacher | Often has temper tantrums/hot tempers |
Parent and teacher | Often fights with other children or bullies them | |
Parent and teacher | Often argumentative with adults | |
Hyperactivity | Parent and teacher | Restless, overactive, cannot stay still for long |
Parent and teacher | Constantly fidgeting or squirming | |
Parent and teacher | If this child is upset, it is hard to comfort him/her | |
Lack of Persistence & Inattention | Parent and teacher | The child likes to complete one task or activity before going on to the next (reversed) |
Parent and teacher | Sees takes through to the end, good attention span (reversed) | |
Parent and teacher | The child stays with an activity (e.g., puzzle, construction, kit, reading) for a long time (reversed) | |
Parent, teacher, and observer | Easily distracted, concentration wanders | |
Impulsivity | Parent and teacher | Can stop and think things out before acting (reversed) |
Parent and teacher | Shares readily with other children (reversed) | |
Observer | Degree of negative mood (withdrawn, uncooperative, sulky, seeming upset, angry) to interview |
Construct | Data source | Measure |
---|---|---|
Health & Health Behaviours | ||
Physical health | Parent | Physical Health Summary score from the Pediatric Quality of Life Inventory (PedsQL) [17]. Summed and average score of 8 items each rated on 5-point scale, tapping a child’s level of functioning in daily activities that rely on good physical health. E.g. problems with running. α = .72 |
Diet quality | Parent | Units of high sugar drinks consumed in the last week |
Behavioural sleep problems | Parent | Five items modelled as a latent variable as per prior studies [18]. E.g. child has problems on 4 or more nights a week with waking during the night (yes/no); this child’s sleep is a small/moderate/large problem. |
Development | ||
Receptive vocabulary | Assessed | Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test [19] of receptive vocabulary in which children listen to a spoken word and are asked to point to the matching picture given a set of four pictures. Higher scores represent higher receptive vocabulary skills. |
Gross motor development | Teacher | On a 4-point scale from ‘much less competent than peers’ to ‘more competent than peers’ |
Fine motor development | Teacher | On a 4-point scale from ‘much less competent than peers’ to ‘more competent than peers’ |
Pre-academic skills | Assessed | |
Home environment | ||
Maternal parenting anger | Mother | Composite measure (weighted mean score) as per LSAC technical advice [22] using four adapted items from the National Longitudinal Study of Children & Youth [23]. Each item rated on 5-point scale from ‘never or almost never’ to ‘almost always’. E.g. how often are you angry when you punish this child? H = .72. |
Paternal parenting anger | Father | |
Maternal parenting consistency | Mother | Composite measure as per LSAC technical advice [22] using five items from the National Longitudinal Survey of Children and Youth [23]. Each item rates on a 10-point scale from ‘not at all’ to ‘all of the time’. E.g. how often does this child get away with things that you feel should have been punished? H = .80 for father; .82 for mothers. |
Paternal parenting consistency | Father | |
Maternal mental health | Mother | Kessler K6 screening scale [24] of six items (summed and averaged) about respondents’ feelings over the past four-week period. Rates on 5-point scale from ‘all of the time’ to ‘none of the time’. E.g. in the past 4 weeks how often have you felt hopeless? α = .84 for mothers, .82 for fathers. |
Paternal mental health | Father | |
Home learning environment | Parent | Single item book reading; plus latent variable with five indicators of other home learning activities including music, art, and play as used in other LSAC studies [25]. Each rated on 4-point scale of frequency of adult-child engagement for each activity in the last week from ‘not in the past week’ to ‘6–7 days in the week’. |
Financial hardship | Parent | 7-item count index ranging from 0 to 7, based on summing Yes = 1, No = 0 responses to 7 items including couldn’t pay bills, gone without meals as used in prior LSAC research [26]. |
Argumentative parental relationships | Parent | Composite of 5 items (summed and averaged) rated on a 5-point scale from ‘never’ to ‘always’. E.g. my partner and I argue; disagree over child-rearing etc. α = .80 |
Stressful life events | Parent | 13-item count index ranging from 0 to 13 based on summing Yes = 1, No = 0 responses about exposure to adverse life events over the past year including marital breakdown, death of friend, as per prior LSAC research [27]. |
Education | ||
Teacher-child relationship | Teacher | |
Time use | ||
Extra-curricular sport | Parent | Sum of 3 items indicating participation (yes / no) in extra-curricular swimming, gymnastics, or team sport |
Extra-curricular music / dance | Parent | Sum of 2 items indicating participation (yes / no) in extra-curricular music and dance |
Weekday TV hours | Parent | Number of hours watching TV on a typical weekday |
Weekday computer hours | Parent | Number of hours using a computer on a typical weekday |
Physical activity | Parent | Parent-rated child enjoyment of physical activity on a 5-point scale from ‘very much dislikes physical activities’ to ‘very much likes physical activity’ |
Neighbourhood | ||
Liveability | Parent | Composite (sum) of 8 items each rated on 4-point scale from ‘strongly disagree’ to ‘strongly agree’. E.g. this is a safe neighbourhood, this neighbourhood has good parks. α = .76 |
Socio-economic index for area (SEIFA) | Australian Bureau of Statistics | Composite of 31 variables (e.g. income, unemployment, occupation and education) computed by the Australian Bureau of Statistics [30]. |
Approach to analysis and missing data
Results
β | 95% CI | |
---|---|---|
Covariate associations with self-regulation at 4–5 years | ||
Female | .50** | .44–.57 |
Age | .01 | .04–.11 |
Birthweight percentile | .07** | .03–.11 |
Breastfed | −.15 | −.29 - -.01 |
Aboriginal Torres Strait Islander | −.53** | −.81 - -.26 |
Non-English home language | .01 | −.10–.11 |
Maternal education level | .13** | .09–.17 |
Household income | .13** | .08–.17 |
Stability of self-regulation 4–5 years to 6–7 years | .54** | .49–.59 |
Predictors of self-regulation at 6–7 years controlling for above | ||
Health | ||
Physical health status | .02 | −.03–.05 |
High sugar drink intake | .02 | −.01–.06 |
Sleep problems | −.08** | −.13 - -.04 |
Development | ||
Vocabulary | .01 | −.03–.06 |
Gross motor | .06** | .02–.10 |
Fine motor | −.05 | −.10–.00 |
Pre-academic skills | .12** | .09–.16 |
Home environment | ||
Maternal angry parenting | −.10** | −.15–.06 |
Paternal angry parenting | −.12** | −.16 - -.07 |
Maternal consistent parenting | −.01 | −.04–.05 |
Paternal consistent parenting | .02 | −.02–.07 |
Maternal mental health | −.01 | −.06–.04 |
Paternal mental health | .02 | −.03–.06 |
Shared book reading frequency | .03 | −.01–.07 |
Home learning activities | .06* | .01–.10 |
Financial hardship | −.07** | −.12 - -.02 |
Argumentative parental relationships | −.03 | −.07–.02 |
Stressful life events | −.00 | −.04–.04 |
Education | ||
Educator-child relationship | .06* | .01–.11 |
Time use | ||
Extra-curricular sport | −.02 | −.05–.02 |
Extra-curricular music/dance | .02 | −.01–.05 |
Weekday TV hours | .04 | .00–.08 |
Weekday computer hours | .01 | −.03–.05 |
Physical activity | −.03 | −.06–.00 |
Neighbourhood | ||
Liveability | −.01 | −.05–.02 |
Socio-economic index | .01 | −.03–.04 |