|
 Researchers assessed school readiness in almost 23,000 children in
Western Australia by looking at motor skills and physical
independence, social skills, emotional maturity and behavior,
language and cognitive abilities and communication skills.
Compared with generally healthy children, chronically ill kids were
19 percent to 36 percent more likely to be developmentally delayed
in these areas by the time they reached school age.
“Previous research has indicated that factors such as school absence
and academic disengagement may play a role in older children with
chronic illness having lower academic outcomes,” said lead study
author Megan Bell of the University of Western Australia.
“Our study shows that chronic illness experienced in early childhood
can increase the chances of a child starting school not ready to
learn,” Bell added by email.
To explore the impact of illness on school readiness, Bell and
colleagues examined government health data on children born in 2003
and 2004 who had developmental evaluations completed by teachers in
2009.
A total of 2,879 kids, or about 13 percent, had a diagnosed chronic
illness. Nearly all of them had just one persistent medical problem,
but 7.4 percent of this group had two or more chronic diagnoses,
researchers report in the journal Pediatrics.
By far, the most common problem was ear infections, which accounted
for 71 percent of the diagnoses, followed by respiratory diseases
such as asthma at 27 percent.
About 3 percent of the children had epilepsy or anemia. One percent
or less of the kids had other medical problems including
cardiovascular disease, cancer, diabetes, malnutrition or obesity.
Illness appeared to take the biggest toll on physical and social
development.
After adjusting for factors like the age, health and marital status
of parents, as well as the children’s ethnicity, English abilities
and socioeconomic status, researchers found chronic illness
associated with 36 percent higher odds of delays in social skills.
Chronically ill kids were also 34 percent more likely to be delayed
in physical abilities such as independent dressing, running and
climbing, and drawing. These children also had 33 percent higher
odds of delays in emotional maturity and 30 percent greater
likelihood of lags in communication skills like storytelling and
imaginative play.
Language and cognitive skills also suffered, with chronically ill
children 19 percent more likely to have delays in these areas than
their healthy peers.
[to top of second column] |
One limitation of the study is that data on chronic illness came
from hospital admissions, which might represent sicker children or
kids without good access to primary care, the authors note. This
might also mean some children classified as healthy in the study
actually had chronic health problems that never resulted in
hospitalization, and that some kids designated as sick might be more
severely ill than other children with the same diagnosis.
Even so, the study adds to a growing body of evidence linking common
childhood health problems like ear infections and asthma to
developmental delays, said Michael Willoughby, a fellow in early
childhood education at RTI International in Research Triangle Park,
North Carolina, who wasn’t involved in the study.
are simply proxies for kids with pre-existing language and attention
issues that are manifested at school entry,” Willoughby added by
email, noting that these problems might be also be easier for
teachers to spot.
At the same time, the study offers more evidence that academic
success depends very much on health even at an early age, said Dr.
Irwin Redlener, president and co-founder of the Children’s Health
Fund and a researcher at Columbia University in New York.
“We need to really understand how health and education are
inexorably linked,” Redlener, who wasn’t involved in the study, said
by email. “This is the case for all children, but is especially
important for children who face additional chronic adversities like
poverty, toxic stress or chronic illness.”
SOURCE: http://bit.ly/1RTWfbp Pediatrics, online April 13, 2016.
(Corrects publication date in Source line to April 13)
[© 2016 Thomson Reuters. All rights
reserved.] Copyright 2016 Reuters. All rights reserved. This material may not be published,
broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
 |
