Pathways from environmental risk to children's psychological maladjustment and resilience
Lead Research Organisation:
University College London
Department Name: Psychology and Human Development
Abstract
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Organisations
Publications
Tzavidis N
(2016)
Longitudinal analysis of the strengths and difficulties questionnaire scores of the Millennium Cohort Study children in England using M-quantile random-effects regression.
in Journal of the Royal Statistical Society. Series A, (Statistics in Society)
Moulton V
(2015)
The role of aspirations in young children's emotional and behavioural problems
in British Educational Research Journal
Moulton V
(2015)
The influence of grandparents' social class on children's aspirations
in British Journal of Sociology of Education
Moulton V
(2016)
Individual-level predictors of young children's aspirations
in Research Papers in Education
Midouhas E
(2015)
Rural/Urban Area Differences in the Cognitive Abilities of Primary School Children in England Rurality/Urbanity and Child Ability in England
in Population, Space and Place
Midouhas E
(2013)
Psychopathology trajectories of children with autism spectrum disorder: the role of family poverty and parenting.
in Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry
Midouhas E
(2014)
Neighbourhood human capital and the development of children?s emotional and behavioural problems: the mediating role of parenting and schools.
in Health & place
Flouri E
(2015)
Emotional and behavioural resilience to multiple risk exposure in early life: the role of parenting.
in European child & adolescent psychiatry
| Description | Our project aimed to answer two questions: a) How far does child poverty impair child well-being, and b) What factors weaken the link and protect children from disadvantages. We tested how neighbourhood and family poverty and other adverse circumstances are associated with children's well-being, as gauged through emotional and behavioural outcomes. We also investigated how factors in the child, family, school and neighbourhood may dampen this association (i.e., promote resilience). To meet these objectives, we used qualitative and quantitative data from the first 4 sweeps of the Millennium Cohort Study (MCS). At the first 4 sweeps children were aged 9 months, and 3, 5 and 7 years, respectively. We also used administrative data from the children's schools in order to explore in detail the role of school-wide factors in predicting children's behaviour problems and children's resilience. In addition, we exploited the hitherto under-used geographical potential of MCS by linking in fine-grained external data for the immediate vicinity from small area statistics. One of the factors we explored as promoting resilience was aspiration. Children at age 7 were asked what they would like to be when they grow up, and their responses were recorded but not as yet coded for general use. This project built on some pilot work we had undertaken to code these responses, initially as high or low status, gender typical or atypical, and extrinsic (e.g., reflecting imagined futures of wealth and fame) or not, and then tested if they exert protective effects on children exposed to high levels of poverty and adversity. We made the quantitatively coded responses data on aspirations of all MCS children available through the Data Archive. We supervised a PhD thesis (using these data) on a related area: the role of aspirations in predicting children's well-being in general, and the role of child, family, school and neighbourhood factors in predicting children's aspirations. We supervised a number of Master's students undertaking their dissertation projects in this broad area also using the MCS data, and employed a full-time post-doctoral research fellow. We used advanced quantitative techniques to analyse our data but strived to communicate our findings to a wide range of non-academic audiences by actively engaging with the media, offering free training to non-academic users of research, and publishing non-technical research briefings and overview papers. We published our research in some 30 academic papers (most of which are in peer-reviewed journals). This published work showed that the impact of family socioeconomic disadvantage on children's emotional and behavioural problems was substantial and larger than that of the other risk factors we examined in detail (neighbourhood disadvantage and adverse life events). At the same time, some disadvantaged children did better than expected emotionally and behaviourally. The individual and family factors associated with such resilience were self-regulation, cognitive ability, high aspirations, and warm parenting. Factors in the broader context were also associated with such emotional and behavioural resilience. 'Good' schools and neighbourhoods were also protective factors. We attempted to examine these phenomena in special child populations, too, such as children with autism and children with ADHD. This was not part of the original objectives. It was work undertaken with our Master's students using the MCS data. This work suggested the importance of socioeconomic disadvantage and parenting for the emotional and behavioural outcomes of children with ADHD and children with autism. Our project also showed that risk factors can work additively and interactively with one another to predict child outcomes, thus suggesting the importance of considering risk cumulatively. Alongside its academic impact this project built capacity. Moulton, the student awarded the grant-linked PhD studentship, has several publications, already a University teaching position, and is on course to have her thesis examined early in 2016. Midouhas, the post-doctoral research fellow, is now a lecturer in psychology at UCL, with many publications and already external funding successes. Several of the 23 master's students whose dissertations (all in the project's areas) we supervised published their work as journal articles and/or won prizes for the quality of their research. Some of these student publications are in very prestigious journals (such as JAACAP or Developmental Psychology). An early-career academic visitor (Narayanan) who joined the PI's lab in 2013 from Norway has also contributed, at no cost, to some of the work we undertook for this project, now published in two journal papers. |
| Exploitation Route | 1. We established both how neighbourhood and family poverty and adversity compromise child well-being, and how protective influences from the children's immediate and wide environments may dampen the effect of poverty and adversity. Charities which develop their case for change from a base of high-quality evidence can directly benefit from the evidence we produced in this project. 2. We located both risk and protective factors at the level of the school and the area. Policy makers planning area and school intervention or prevention programmes can directly benefit from the precision with which we identified factors that are associated with both child maladjustment and child resilience. 3. We identified groups of children at high risk for emotional and behavioural problems, but, importantly, we were also able to establish that for some of these children individual, family, school or neighbourhood factors did not exert any protective influences. These will be the children that mental health services will want to immediately target. 4. The ultimate beneficiaries will, of course, be the children themselves. We did not directly engage with the children, but we reached them by engaging with some of the significant adults in their lives. Parents and teachers want to know what exactly leads to emotional and behavioural problems, but also how they can intervene to prevent these problems in the first place. |
| Sectors | Communities and Social Services/Policy Education Government Democracy and Justice |
| Description | We gave several conference papers and presentations to a range of audiences, including non-academic. We organised and delivered two one-day workshops, providing, free of charge, statistical training while disseminating knowledge. We published reports of key findings in accessible language, and made them freely available on the web. We know these were read and were well-received because of the positive feedback we obtained. |
| First Year Of Impact | 2012 |
| Sector | Communities and Social Services/Policy,Education |
| Impact Types | Societal |
| Description | British Academy Small Grants Scheme |
| Amount | £10,000 (GBP) |
| Organisation | The British Academy |
| Department | British Academy/Leverhulme Trust Senior Research Fellowships |
| Sector | Charity/Non Profit |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Start | 01/2018 |
| End | 12/2019 |
| Description | Early family risk, school context, and children's joint trajectories of cognitive ability and mental health |
| Amount | £375,000 (GBP) |
| Funding ID | ES/N007921/1 |
| Organisation | Economic and Social Research Council |
| Sector | Public |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Start | 11/2016 |
| End | 10/2019 |
| Description | Leverhulme DTP for the 'Ecological Brain' |
| Amount | £1,000,000 (GBP) |
| Organisation | The Leverhulme Trust |
| Sector | Charity/Non Profit |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Start | 09/2018 |
| End | 09/2022 |
| Description | Presentation of the 'early aspirations findings' to the National Institute for Career Education and Counselling in late November 2014 |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | Very positive reception As above |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2014 |