The Cognitive Profiles of Maltreated Children in Care and Their Educational Needs: Supporting Good Outcomes

2013 ◽  
Vol 38 (1) ◽  
pp. 28-35 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lisa Joanne DeGregorio ◽  
Sara McLean

Children in care, who have been maltreated, consistently demonstrate poorer educational outcomes than their peers. A number of reasons have been suggested for this such as a lack of stability and opportunities, as compared to their peers. One possible contributor to the poorer educational attainment of children in care is their underlying cognitive vulnerabilities. Cognitive deficits in maltreated children are thought to arise as a result of the impact of trauma on the developing brain. These cognitive deficits include difficulties with executive functioning. Executive functioning abilities include the ability to inhibit behaviour, plan ahead and switch from task to task and are critical for navigating the day to day requirements of educational settings. This article summarises what we know about the cognitive vulnerabilities of maltreated children in care and outlines the implications of these cognitive deficits for supporting maltreated children.

Author(s):  
Linda Cusworth ◽  
Louise Tracey ◽  
Helen Baldwin ◽  
Nina Biehal

Abstract Previous research has highlighted the poor educational attainment of children in out-of-home care, until relatively recently seen as a potential failure of the care system itself. However, the relationship between care and education outcomes is complex. It is important to disentangle the impact of the care system from that of adverse circumstances leading to admission to care. In this study, educational outcomes for 68 children (aged 3–9 years) in foster-care due to concerns about abuse or neglect were compared to those for 166 children with current or past child welfare involvement living at home. Data from teacher assessments of communication and literacy, and a standardized measure of receptive vocabulary were analysed. Accounting for key differences between the two groups, there was little evidence that educational attainment of children in care was significantly worse than that of children living at home. The findings suggest that being in care is unlikely to be the direct cause of poor educational achievement amongst children in care relative to the wider population of children. The study has implications for the ways in which schools and other services, both across the UK and internationally, work with children in and on the margins of care.


Author(s):  
Amy Sweet ◽  
Richard Harris ◽  
David Manley

BackgroundThere has been substantial discussion in the literature about where you grow up and if whether or not you experience social and spatial mobility during childhood has substantial bearing upon later life achievement (Pribesh and Downey, 1999; Gasper et al, 2010; Sharkey and Elwert, 2011). ObjectivesThis paper utilises data from the National Pupil Database (NPD) and a quantitative framework to explore the impact of residential mobility on educational outcomes. Many previous studies of neighbourhood mobility have used point in time measures when studying inequality, which means that an individual’s neighbourhood trajectory is overlooked. Data/MethodsWe follow a single cohort of pupils’ over an eleven year time period to analyse their mobility along with their individual characteristics to provide a clear understanding of who is moving and the impact this has on them in terms of educational attainment. We also use the index of multiple deprivation as a measure of neighbourhood wealth to determine to what extent children are able to ’trade up’ in terms of neighbourhood. FindingsOur findings show that moving home has a negative impact on educational attainment compared to those that stay in the same location throughout the educational life cycle. Those that ‘trade up’ in terms of quality of neighbourhood still do not achieve the same educational outcomes as their peers who live in a lower deprived neighbourhood throughout their schooling. ConclusionResidential mobility between deprived areas, as shown in this paper, has more of an impact than just being ‘stuck in place’. It is not purely a case of where you live determining your outcomes, but also how often you move home in childhood and adolescence.


2019 ◽  
Vol 116 (15) ◽  
pp. 7266-7271 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jennie E. Brand ◽  
Ravaris Moore ◽  
Xi Song ◽  
Yu Xie

Children whose parents divorce tend to have worse educational outcomes than children whose parents stay married. However, not all children respond identically to their parents divorcing. We focus on how the impact of parental divorce on children’s education varies by how likely or unlikely divorce was for those parents. We find a significant negative effect of parental divorce on educational attainment, particularly college attendance and completion, among children whose parents were unlikely to divorce. Families expecting marital stability, unprepared for disruption, may experience considerable adjustment difficulties when divorce occurs, leading to negative outcomes for children. By contrast, we find no effect of parental divorce among children whose parents were likely to divorce. Children of high-risk marriages, who face many social disadvantages over childhood irrespective of parental marital status, may anticipate or otherwise accommodate to the dissolution of their parents’ marriage. Our results suggest that family disruption does not uniformly disrupt children’s attainment.


2010 ◽  
Vol 19 (3) ◽  
pp. 70-78 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mary Purdy ◽  
Aimee Dietz

Abstract Instructing individuals with aphasia in the usage of AAC strategies and devices is a challenging endeavor. Not only does this population present with a wide range of linguistic impairments, but many individuals also demonstrate cognitive deficits, which may adversely affect communication. This paper will summarize the wide variety of cognitive deficits demonstrated by individuals with aphasia, specifically attention, memory and executive functioning problems. In addition, we will review the impact of these cognitive impairments on communicative competence. Finally, we will discuss an intervention, the Multimodality Communication Training Program (MCTP), designed to address the cognitive impairments that influence AAC intervention.


2020 ◽  
Vol 45 (4) ◽  
pp. 249-257
Author(s):  
Stephan Lund ◽  
Cathy Stokes

AbstractThis article presents a brief scoping review of the literature on the educational outcomes of care experienced children and young people in Australia published since 2010. The review also examines key educational issues and the impact of being in care on the educational experience of children and young people. Twenty-five papers were selected for review, key information extracted and recurrent themes noted. Themes include stigma and low expectations, school disruption and absenteeism, issues within the care and education systems and the importance of good relationships with supportive adults. The review found that young people in care often experience much worse educational outcomes than their peers. Conclusions and recommendations include reforming the care and education systems, focussing workers on building strong supportive relationships with young people, helping them to build resilience and prioritising education. Further targeted research is also recommended.


Author(s):  
Carolina Cruvinel Sandoval ◽  
Cláudia Maria Gaspardo ◽  
Maria Beatriz Martins Linhares

Author(s):  
Elmo Christian Saarentaus ◽  
Aki Samuli Havulinna ◽  
Nina Mars ◽  
Ari Ahola-Olli ◽  
Tuomo Tapio Johannes Kiiskinen ◽  
...  

AbstractCopy number variants (CNVs) are associated with syndromic and severe neurological and psychiatric disorders (SNPDs), such as intellectual disability, epilepsy, schizophrenia, and bipolar disorder. Although considered high-impact, CNVs are also observed in the general population. This presents a diagnostic challenge in evaluating their clinical significance. To estimate the phenotypic differences between CNV carriers and non-carriers regarding general health and well-being, we compared the impact of SNPD-associated CNVs on health, cognition, and socioeconomic phenotypes to the impact of three genome-wide polygenic risk score (PRS) in two Finnish cohorts (FINRISK, n = 23,053 and NFBC1966, n = 4895). The focus was on CNV carriers and PRS extremes who do not have an SNPD diagnosis. We identified high-risk CNVs (DECIPHER CNVs, risk gene deletions, or large [>1 Mb] CNVs) in 744 study participants (2.66%), 36 (4.8%) of whom had a diagnosed SNPD. In the remaining 708 unaffected carriers, we observed lower educational attainment (EA; OR = 0.77 [95% CI 0.66–0.89]) and lower household income (OR = 0.77 [0.66–0.89]). Income-associated CNVs also lowered household income (OR = 0.50 [0.38–0.66]), and CNVs with medical consequences lowered subjective health (OR = 0.48 [0.32–0.72]). The impact of PRSs was broader. At the lowest extreme of PRS for EA, we observed lower EA (OR = 0.31 [0.26–0.37]), lower-income (OR = 0.66 [0.57–0.77]), lower subjective health (OR = 0.72 [0.61–0.83]), and increased mortality (Cox’s HR = 1.55 [1.21–1.98]). PRS for intelligence had a similar impact, whereas PRS for schizophrenia did not affect these traits. We conclude that the majority of working-age individuals carrying high-risk CNVs without SNPD diagnosis have a modest impact on morbidity and mortality, as well as the limited impact on income and educational attainment, compared to individuals at the extreme end of common genetic variation. Our findings highlight that the contribution of traditional high-risk variants such as CNVs should be analyzed in a broader genetic context, rather than evaluated in isolation.


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