2011 The Palm Beach County Family Study (Full Report)

Children’s Behavior and DevelopmentAt the time of the fifth in-person interview, the focal children ranged in age from 47 to 56 months, withan average age of 50 months. Fifty-four percent of the children are boys. 26 In the fifth year, mothers wereasked questions drawn from the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study Birth Cohort (ECLS-B) preschoolparent interview (National Center for Education Statistics, 2003; Andreassen & Fletcher, 2007) regardingthe behavior and development of the focal children. 27 These questions assessed children’s language andcommunication skills, social-emotional competencies, and emergent literacy/pre-academic behaviors (useof books, drawing, writing, letter-recognition, counting, etc.).Development is a function of both individual characteristics and the social environment. Thus, althoughthe behaviors and abilities mentioned above serve as useful indicators about how a child is developing,the actual age at which a normally developing child exhibits them can vary considerably (Andreassen &Fletcher, 2007). Also, prior to the ECLS-B, few national norms were available to link the age at whichthese milestones are achieved with future development, except for evidence suggesting that delays inreaching milestones are linked to poorer outcomes later.The tables in this section present the percentages of sample children whose mothers reported that theywere demonstrating selected behaviors that are developmentally characteristic of 4- and 5-year-oldchildren at the time of year 5 survey. We also describe differences in their reported behaviors by age andnativity. In a subsequent report, we will compare the percentages of children in our sample with those inthe national ECLS-B study sample reaching milestones used in the year 5 survey.Social and Emotional DevelopmentStudy mothers described their children’s social and emotional competencies in very positive terms. Asshown in Table 17, 83 percent or more of the sample characterized their focal child as happy, cooperative,and well liked by other children, as well as a child who enjoys playing with other children and who iseager to learn and try new things “most of the time.” Although a sizable percentage (42%) reported thattheir child also has difficulty sitting still, this is not atypical behavior for 4-year-olds. The fact that at leasta quarter of the mothers reported that their child gets “upset easily” or “worries a lot” is a concern,although the reason for this response is not clear. Overall, mothers’ reports on their children’s social-26 Five of the 310 mothers in the year 5 sample had multiple births, so in total, the year 5 sample represents 316 children, 114girls and 172 boys. When responding to the child development questions, mothers of twins and triplets were asked to refer to theoldest child. There were no differences in the mean ages of boys and girls; as of July 2010, both boys and girls had a mean age of5.5 years (with a standard deviation of 0.34 and 0.35 respectively).27 Another potential source of developmental information on these children are scores on the Ages and Stages Questionnaire(ASQ), which is filled out by parents who receive some maternal health services or whose children are enrolled in childcare.However, completion rates tend to be low; ASQ data were available for just 15 percent of the sample children in the fifth year.Chapin Hall at the University of Chicago 35