Search

Objectives: Prenatal intake of alcohol and tobacco have been associated with negative outcomes in children. Consumption of alcohol while breastfeeding has also been associated with dose-dependent decreases in abstract reasoning ability and academic scores in children at later ages. Using longitudinal data from The Growing Up in Australia Study, the current study aimed to investigate whether intake of alcohol or tobacco while breastfeeding was related to later developmental health outcomes in children., Results: Multivariable linear regression analyses were performed on a sample of 2008 babies who were actively breastfeeding at study entry and 4679 babies who had been breastfed at any time (actively breastfed babies combined with babies who had been previously breastfed). Only a diagnosis of Autism spectrum disorder and Attention deficit disorder were associated with lower developmental health outcomes. Neither maternal alcohol consumption nor tobacco smoking while breastfeeding were associated with developmental health outcomes at 6-7 years old or 10-11 years old for either sample group. A relationship between maternal consumption of alcohol or tobacco smoking while breastfeeding and later developmental health outcomes in children was not identified.

Objective: Few studies have examined the sleep behaviors associated with a caregiver-reported sleep problem beyond early childhood and across different age groups. This study examined sleep behaviors associated with a caregiver-reported sleep problem from birth to middle childhood., Methods: Participants were 5107 children from the Longitudinal Study of Australian Children-Birth Cohort. Caregiver-reported child sleep problems and sleep behaviors were assessed biennially from ages 0-1 to 10-11 years. Logistic regressions were used to examine associations between three child sleep behaviors (waking overnight, difficulty falling asleep, and difficulty sleeping alone) and the odds of having a caregiver-reported sleep problem at each age., Results: Caregiver-reported child sleep problems were most prevalent in infancy (17.1%) and decreased through middle childhood (7.7%). All three sleep behaviors were associated with a sleep problem at each age. Whereas waking overnight was the most common sleep behavior and was associated with the highest odds of having a sleep problem from infancy to age 6-7 years (ORs = 5.78-8.29), difficulty falling asleep was the most common sleep behavior and was associated with the highest odds of having a sleep problem at ages 8-9 and 10-11 years (ORs = 10.65 and 17.78, respectively)., Conclusion: Caregivers' endorsement of a child sleep problem was associated with developmentally-relevant sleep behaviors, with night awakenings most relevant during infancy and difficulty falling asleep most relevant in middle childhood. Study findings have implications for targeted and developmentally-focused sleep problem screening questions in child healthcare settings. Future research examining additional indicators of caregiver-defined sleep problems is required., (Copyright © 2019 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.)

Background: When children aged 0-4 years are analysed together as a group for poisoning risk, important differences for smaller age intervals by medicinal and non-medicinal substances are masked. These differences have been attributed to child developmental stages but no studies have been conducted that examine the predictive value of child developmental stage for poisoning by substance type, using 3-month age intervals as a proxy for developmental stage and adjusting for the effect of sex, socio-economic status and remoteness of residence., Methods: A population-based dataset of unintentional poisoning hospitalizations in children aged 0-4 years was used to predict the type of substance ingested. Associations between the type of substance and age, sex, socio-economic status and remoteness of residence were measured using multivariate logistic regression., Results: Children aged 12-17 months had significantly higher odds of experiencing a non-medicinal poisoning while children aged 24-41 months had significantly higher odds of experiencing a medicinal poisoning. Males and children from more disadvantaged and outer regional areas had higher odds of experiencing a non-medicinal poisoning., Conclusions: Children aged 0-4 years differ in their stage of development and as a consequence, vary significantly in their ability to access their environment. Our results clearly show that odds of poisoning by medicinal substances compared with non-medicinal substances change as children age. This study provides evidence that child development predicts the type of substance accessed and ingested., (© 2012 John Wiley & Sons Ltd.)

Attention skills are strong cross-sectional predictors of reading comprehension from childhood through to adolescence. However, less is known about the developmental relations between these two domains across this period. This study examined the codevelopment of reading and attention in a community sample of 614 Australian school students (50% female). Reading and attention were assessed at ages 8, 10, 12, and 14. Results of univariate latent growth models demonstrated, on average, curvilinear trajectories for reading in which rapid growth across younger age spans decelerates as children reach adolescence. By contrast, attention skills remained relatively stable on average. Significant negative correlations were observed between the intercept and slope factors in separate reading (r = -.62) and attention models (r = -.39) suggesting compensatory growth patterns in which poorer performing students in both domains at age 8 have steeper trajectories than their higher performing peers. A comparison of a multivariate latent growth model and an autoregressive latent trajectory model with structured residuals (ALT-SR) examined the interrelatedness of development in reading and attention. Both between-individual and within-individual cross-domain parameters showed reading and attention to be positively related at Grade 3. indicating an association between better attention and higher reading achievement at age 8. However, there was little evidence for interrelated growth across domains in this sample. The results contribute to theories which explain whether and how multiple cognitive domains codevelop over a substantial period of childhood and early adolescence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Aims: Early childhood anaemia due to iron deficiency is widespread in remote communities across northern Australia. Current recommendations for healthy food to complement breastfeeding at age 6 to 23 months include iron‐rich and iron‐enriched foods. An electronic nutrient analysis was undertaken to assess the iron content of hypothetical healthy diets for breastfed babies and young children aged 6 to 23 months in Australia, in comparison with their estimated requirements. Methods: Hypothetical diets for 1 day were developed that were consistent with the Foundation Diets for breastfed infants 6 to 12 months and for toddlers 13 to 23 months. Nutrient content was derived using the Australian Food Composition database in FoodWorks 10. The iron content of these two diets were compared with Estimated Average Requirements (EARs) and Recommended Dietary Intakes (RDIs) for iron for infants aged 7 to 12 months and children aged 1 to 3 years. Results: The iron content of the hypothetical diet for breastfed infants aged 6 to 12 months (5.8 mg) was less than the EAR (7 mg, 83%) and the RDI (11 mg, 53%). For young breastfed children aged 13 to 23 months, the iron content of the hypothetical diet was 4.4 mg; above the EAR (4 mg, 110%) but less than RDI (9 mg, 49%). Conclusions: Breastfeeding has health and neurodevelopmental benefits for infants and young children that are particularly important in remote Australia where food insecurity and poor nutrition compromise health and wellbeing. Adequate iron intake is also important for neurodevelopment in early life but healthy diets for breastfed babies and young children may have insufficient iron content to meet requirements. The upcoming revision of the Australian Dietary Guidelines provides an opportunity to consider this issue. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: The study compared neurodevelopmental outcome at 3 years of age of infants with infantile hypertrophic pyloric stenosis (IHPS) who underwent pyloromyotomy with healthy control infants in New South Wales, Australia.Methods: Infants with IHPS as well as controls were recruited between August 2006 and July 2008. Developmental assessments were performed using the Bayley scales of infant and toddler development (version III) (BSITD-III) at 1 and 3 years of age.Results: Of the 43 infants originally assessed at 1 year, 39 returned for assessment at 3 years (90%). The majority were term infants (77%). Assessments were also performed on 156 control infants. Infants with IHPS scored significantly lower on four of the five Bayley subsets (cognitive, receptive and expressive language and fine motor) compared to control infants. Analysis of co-variance showed statistically significant results in favour of the control group for these four subsets.Conclusion: Compared with the outcomes at 1 year, infants with IHPS at 3 years of age continue to score below controls in four of the BSITD-III subscales. This suggests they should have developmental follow-up with targeted clinical intervention. There is a need for further studies into functional impact and longer term outcomes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: During early childhood, it is important to identify which children require intervention before they face the increased demands of school. This study aimed to: (1) compare parents’ and educators’ concerns, (2) examine inter-rater reliability between parents’ and educators’ concerns and (3) determine the group difference between level of concern and children’s performance on clinical testing. Method: Parents and educators of 1205 4- to 5-year-old children in the Sound Start Study completed the Parents’ Evaluation of Developmental Status. Children whose parents/educators were concerned about speech and language underwent direct assessment measuring speech accuracy (n = 275), receptive vocabulary (n = 131) and language (n = 274). Result: More parents/educators were concerned about children’s speech and expressive language, than behaviour, social-emotional, school readiness, receptive language, self-help, fine motor and gross motor skills. Parents’ and educators’ responses were significantly correlated (except gross motor). Parents’ and educators’ level of concern about expressive speech and language was significantly correlated with speech accuracy on direct assessment. Educators’ level of concern was significantly correlated with a screening measure of language. Scores on a test of receptive vocabulary significantly differed between those with concern and those without. Conclusion: Children’s communication skills concerned more parents and educators than other aspects of development and these concerns generally aligned with clinical testing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Australian Play School is a children’s television programme developed in collaboration with early childhood educators. It is screened free to air across Australia. Two hundred and twenty-four adult carers of young children aged 1–8 years completed an online survey via a link on the Play School website. The survey addressed child behaviours during and after viewing, and adult perceptions about which programme segments were most engaging to the child. Play School elicited a large number and variety of behavioural responses from children during and after viewing. The types of responses elicited suggest that viewing the programme may be beneficial for children’s development and learning. Results were tempered by the age of the child and this, as well as the impact of carer attitudes and carer input during and after viewing, needs to be explored further before results are translated into recommendations for programming and optimal viewing strategies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study explores the development of the interactional competence of an 8-year-old, Japanese learner of English over three cooking sessions with native speakers of English at her home during her period of residence in Australia. The study draws upon Vygotsky’s (1978) zone of proximal development in order to elucidate the L2 child’s process of acquiring interactional competence in this unfamiliar social practice (i.e., cooking-relevant talk). The analysis reveals marked changes in the child’s participation pattern over time, moving from making relevant minimal responses to more initiated, and autonomous participation. The child recycled some of the interlocutors’ utterances from the previous sessions, showing that the earlier cooking sessions provided her with a linguistic challenge and became a resource of language learning for her. She also made use of a textual resource (i.e., the recipe) as a scaffold to move toward more autonomous participation. In addition, the role of the recipe became less central as her participation became increasingly more independent. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Product-based television refers to programming that implicitly promotes toys to children in the guise of a television show. The aim of the present study was to examine how exposure to such programs might impact on one of the most important domains of young children's development: pretend play. Thirty-six preschoolers in Australia watched 1 of 3 different types of television program (product-based with action-adventure themes; product-based with educational themes; or non-product-based) and were given a range of product-based and non-product-based toys to play with. Contrary to expectation, program type had minimal impact on the overall frequency of pretend play children engaged in. However, compared to educational product-based programs and non-product-based programs, children who watched action-adventure product-based programs exhibited significantly less acts of novel pretense and significantly more acts of imitative pretense. Findings such as this are critical to the ongoing debate surrounding the regulation of television content aimed at children. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Objective: To trial the Parents' Evaluation of Developmental Status (PEDS) as an instrument for reporting developmental concerns for Australian preschool children.Method: A cross-sectional survey of parents and carers of 262 children attending five day-care centres and two kindergartens in Melbourne was conducted between October and November 1999. Parents and carers completed the written PEDS questionnaire, comprising 10 questions eliciting concerns about learning, development and behaviour, and answered questions about the acceptability and use of the PEDS.Results: Of 445 children, 389 were eligible for inclusion. Complete parent and carer PEDS data were available for 262 children (67% response: 47% boys; 53% girls) aged from 18 months to 5 years, 9 months. Most parents found the PEDS questionnaire easy to complete (98%) and likely to be useful to health professionals (89%). Twenty-four children (9%) were classified as being at high-risk of disabilities and 49 (19%) were classified as being at medium-risk of disabilities. Parents of 125 children (48%) reported no concerns. The prevalence of parental concerns was similar to the USA norming sample. Carers reported similar prevalences of concerns. Although overall agreement was high, parent/carer kappa-values were modest, being highest for the gross motor (kappa = 0.40) and social-emotional (kappa = 0.37) domains.Conclusions: The PEDS is acceptable to parents of Australian preschool children, with a prevalence of significant concerns (i.e. children at high- and medium-risk of developmental problems) that is similar to those in the USA. Further research is needed to assess what factors differentially influence whether a concern is felt in a particular domain for a particular child. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]