Development of a predictive risk model for school readiness at age 3 years using the UK Millennium Cohort Study

Area of Science:

• Developmental Psychology
• Public Health
• Pediatrics

Background:

• Early childhood development is crucial for lifelong outcomes.
• Identifying predictors of school readiness can inform early intervention programs.
• Existing models may not fully capture the complexity of factors influencing school readiness.

Purpose of the Study:

• To develop a predictive risk model (PRM) for school readiness at age 3 years.
• To utilize perinatal and early infancy data for prediction.
• To identify key risk factors for school readiness.

Main Methods:

• Development of a PRM using data from the UK Millennium Cohort Study.
• Predictors identified from data collected at 9 months of age.
• School readiness assessed at age 3 using the Bracken School Readiness Assessment.
• Stepwise selection and dominance analysis used to create two models.
• Model comparison via Area Under the Receiver Operating Characteristic Curve (AUROC) and Integrated Discrimination Improvement (IDI).

Main Results:

• A dataset of 9487 complete cases was analyzed.
• 11.7% of children were not school ready at age 3.
• Key predictors identified include socioeconomic status, maternal education, child's ethnicity, sex, and infant developmental milestones.
• Model 1 achieved an AUROC of 0.80, and a parsimonious Model 2 achieved 0.78.
• Social determinants were identified as strong predictors of school readiness.

Conclusions:

• Perinatal and infant risk factors effectively predict school readiness at age three.
• A model with six key attributes identified around birth demonstrates predictive capability.
• The findings highlight the importance of social determinants in early childhood development and school readiness.