Children born very or extremely preterm transitioning to school: a cross-sectional study examining predictors of school readiness, school adjustment, and support needs
File version
Version of Record (VoR)
Author(s)
Armstrong, Rebecca
McBryde, Cathy
Morawska, Alina
Etel, Evren
Hurrion, Elizabeth M
McAuliffe, Tomomi
Johnston, Leanne
Griffith University Author(s)
Primary Supervisor
Other Supervisors
Editor(s)
Date
Size
File type(s)
Location
Abstract
The transition to school is a sensitive developmental period for young children. Although children born very/extremely preterm have increased risk of health and developmental concerns, predictors of their school readiness and adjustment remain largely unexamined. Parents of very/extremely preterm-born children (aged 3–7 years; pre-transition n = 114, post-transition n = 112) completed an online survey assessing their perceptions of children’s school readiness (pre-transition) or adjustment (post-transition), support needs, child behaviour, parent distress, and parent confidence. Poorer school readiness and adjustment and greater needs for support correlated with child health/developmental condition/s; hyperactivity, peer problems, conduct problems, emotional symptoms, and less prosocial behaviour; and lower parent confidence. Using hierarchical linear regression, parent confidence emerged as the strongest common predictor of school readiness (pre-transition) and school adjustment (post-transition), followed by low hyperactivity, high parent education (tertiary), and no diagnosed child health/developmental condition/s. Results will be used to identify families needing support and develop tailored support strategies.
Journal Title
Early Child Development and Care
Conference Title
Book Title
Edition
Volume
Issue
Thesis Type
Degree Program
School
Publisher link
Patent number
Funder(s)
Grant identifier(s)
Rights Statement
Rights Statement
© 2024 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. The terms on which this article has been published allow the posting of the Accepted Manuscript in a repository by the author(s) or with their consent.
Item Access Status
Note
This publication has been entered in Griffith Research Online as an advance online version.
Access the data
Related item(s)
Subject
Education systems
Applied and developmental psychology
Social and personality psychology
Persistent link to this record
Citation
Mitchell, AE; Armstrong, R; McBryde, C; Morawska, A; Etel, E; Hurrion, EM; McAuliffe, T; Johnston, L, Children born very or extremely preterm transitioning to school: a cross-sectional study examining predictors of school readiness, school adjustment, and support needs, Early Child Development and Care, 2024 pp. 1-17