Measuring the combined risk to young children's cognitive development: An alternative to cumulative indices

Authors

James Hall, University of Oxford
Pam Sammons, University of Nottingham
Kathy Sylva, University of Oxford
Edward Melhuish, University of WollongongFollow
Brenda Taggart, University of London
Iram Siraj-Blatchford, University of LondonFollow
Rebecca Smees, University of Nottingham

RIS ID

94095

Publication Details

Hall, J. E., Sammons, P., Sylva, K., Melhuish, E., Taggart, B., Siraj-Blatchford, I. & Smees, R. (2010). Measuring the combined risk to young children's cognitive development: An alternative to cumulative indices. British Journal of Developmental Psychology, 28 (2), 219-238.

Abstract

In studies of child development, the combined effect of multiple risks acting in unison has been represented in a variety of ways. This investigation builds upon this preceding work and presents a new procedure for capturing the combined effect of multiple risks. A representative sample of 2,899 British children had their cognitive development measured at 36 and 58 months of age along with 10 potential risks during this period of development. Comparing a cumulative index of these risks against the previously undocumented alternative of confirmatory factor analysis using formative measurement, this study found differences favouring the factor analysis. The factor analysis procedure demonstrated greater predictive power of children's cognitive development while it systematically tested two of the assumptions implicit in cumulative risk indices.