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Consistent with other studies, teacher scores were lowerthan primary carer scores. As reported earlier in thissection, 22.5 per cent of all children over the age of 3were at high risk of developing behavioural or emotionalproblems according to their primary carers. Among 266children who had both teacher-based and primary carerbasedSDQ scores, 13.5 per cent of children were in thehigh-risk category according to their primary carers and11.7 per cent were in this category according to theirteachers. The reduction in the primary carer-based scoresmay in part be explained by the fact that most childrenfor whom both scores were available were in the K cohort,who were shown earlier to have lower difficulties scores.The disparities between teacher and primary carerbasedscores highlight the differences in perceptions,experiences and expectations. Children may behavedifferently at home and school. Teachers may havedifferent expectations of the children’s behaviour or mayhave learnt how to limit the exhibition of some behaviours.Regardless, these results demonstrate that this series ofquestions relies on the opinions of one or two people.How close were teachers’ and primary carers’assessments? That is, did teachers and primary carersrate the same children as low-or high-risk on variousbehavioural scales, or did teachers see problembehaviours in some groups of children and primary carersin others? More than half of the children (56.2 per cent)had scores within the ‘normal’ range from both primarycarer and teacher on the total difficulties scale, andmost children (78.1 per cent) were rated by both groupsof respondents as not being in a high-risk category(that is, within ‘normal’ or ‘borderline’ range). A further10.2 per cent were rated as high risk by primary carersbut not teachers, 8.3 per cent were rated as high risk byteachers but not primary carers, and only 3.4 per centwere rated as high risk by both teacher and primarycarer. 29 This discrepancy between teacher and primarycarer-based scores could be due to different expectationsand perceptions of teachers and primary carers but couldalso stem from a range of other factors that would need tobe investigated separately.ConclusionThe overall findings on the social and emotional behaviourof children in Footprints in Time were consistent withexisting studies about both Indigenous and non-Indigenouschildren. Girls were found to have lower hyperactivity andpeer problems scores, indicating a lower risk of developingproblems in these areas, and to be on average moreprosocial than boys. Age was also found to be a factorin the prosocial domain, with older children less likely tohave problems. While the younger cohort appeared tohave significantly higher scores in the conduct problemsdomain, differences in question wording may havecontributed to this disparity.Of some concern is the finding that Aboriginal and TorresStrait Islander children in the study had higher difficultiesscores than those obtained in studies not specificallyfocusing on Indigenous children. However, the proportionof the Footprints in Time children whose scores putthem into a high-risk category for developing clinicallysignificant behavioural problems (22.5 per cent) was similarto numbers obtained in other Australian studies whichanalysed Indigenous children separately. Further researchcould contribute to our understanding of whethercultural response preferences and other factors haveplayed a role.The strengths and difficulties scores collected fromprimary carers were also compared to those provided bythe children’s teachers or centre-based carers. Overall,the teacher-based scores were found to be lower thanthose based on primary carers’ responses. The teachersand primary carers of more than 78 per cent of childrengave them scores below the high-risk range, and only3.4 per cent of children were rated by both their primarycarers and teachers as having a high risk of significantbehavioural problems.The analysis presented above has only briefly summarisedthe emotional and behavioural development of children,and has not touched on many other factors that couldinfluence it. It is hoped that the richness of the data willallow for much more detailed research in the future.29 The category cut-offs for the SQD questionnaire are different depending on whether the questionnaire is completed by parent or teacher(Goodman 2012).Footprints in Time: The Longitudinal Study of Indigenous Children | Key Summary Report from Wave 377