Mother studying 24.9 Mother not studying * 23.7 Non English speaking background 21.2 English at home ** 24.2 4 or more children 22.9 Fewer than 4 children** 24.3 Figure 18 shows how the same factors affecting vocabulary scores affect the social children’s and emotional difficulties scores at Wave 3. Social and emotional difficulties scores decrease with increasing maternal age at first birth. Reduced scores are related to children being in good health and maternal education at Year 12 or higher (at the 10 per cent level). Reduced scores are also associated with being older and being a girl (not shown in Figure 18). Major life events did not change scores significantly in the model. Figure 18: Estimated difficulties scores by selected mother and child characteristics (Wave 3 data). **p<0.01; *p<0.05 Tabular version of figure 18 Mother and child characteristic Estimate difficulties score Young mum (18) 12.6 Older mum (26) ** 11.7 Worries about language 14.1 Not worried about language ** 11.6 Parent low social and emotional wellbeing 13.4 Parent high social and emotional wellbeing ** 10.7 Child watches TV three hours or less a day 12.8 Child watches TV more than 3 hours a day 11.9 Parent education Year 12 or greater 11.8 Parent education less than Year 12 ** 12.5 Child is healthy 11.9 Child is not very healthy 13.0 Children whose mothers had low social and emotional wellbeing or were concerned about their speech or understanding had higher social and emotional difficulties scores. Scores were child’s also higher if children watched three or more hours of television a day. Discussion It was hypothesised that the children of mothers who had their first child when they were a teenager would have lower vocabulary scores and increased social and emotional difficulties scores, and this was found to be the case. It was also hypothesised that once other characteristics were taken into consideration, maternal age at first birth would not have a strong
Mother studying 24.9 Mother not studying * 23.7 Non English speaking background 21.2 English at home ** 24.2 4 or more children 22.9 Fewer than 4 children** 24.3 Figure 18 shows how the same factors affecting vocabulary scores affect the children’s social and emotional difficulties scores at Wave 3. Social and emotional difficulties scores decrease with increasing maternal age at first birth. Reduced scores are related to children being in good health and maternal education at Year 12 or higher (at the 10 per cent level). Reduced scores are also associated with being older and being a girl (not shown in Figure 18). Major life events did not change scores significantly in the model. Figure 18: Estimated difficulties scores by selected mother and child characteristics (Wave 3 data). **p<0.01; *p<0.05 Tabular version of figure 18 Mother and child characteristic Estimate difficulties score Young mum (18) 12.6 Older mum (26) ** 11.7 Worries about language 14.1 Not worried about language ** 11.6 Parent low social and emotional wellbeing 13.4 Parent high social and emotional wellbeing ** 10.7 Child watches TV three hours or less a day 12.8 Child watches TV more than 3 hours a day 11.9 Parent education Year 12 or greater 11.8 Parent education less than Year 12 ** 12.5 Child is healthy 11.9 Child is not very healthy 13.0 Children whose mothers had low social and emotional wellbeing or were concerned about their child’s speech or understanding had higher social and emotional difficulties scores. Scores were also higher if children watched three or more hours of television a day. Discussion It was hypothesised that the children of mothers who had their first child when they were a teenager would have lower vocabulary scores and increased social and emotional difficulties scores, and this was found to be the case. It was also hypothesised that once other characteristics were taken into consideration, maternal age at first birth would not have a strong