Friday 8 July 2011

Testing children at two

It is an unfortunate fact of life that one can always rely upon some of the more vociferous home educating types to oppose anything sensible and support any crackpot idea going the rounds. Some of them seem to have a positively uncanny knack for attacking any initiative likely to benefit children. This is particularly so with things concerning very young children. The so-called ’nappy curriculum’ and the recent announcement that children will be ‘tested’ at two to see how they are doing, being good examples of this tendency.

So why is a it a good idea to check how children are developing when they are two? What possible business of the state’s is it, if my two year-old boy is ’playing nicely’ with other children? This is statism gone mad! Well no, not really. Apart from the obvious advantages to small children of picking up very early any signs of Autistic Spectrum Disorder, language delay, hearing loss and so on; there are other reasons for this move. These are the need to protect the weak and vulnerable in society. Not just the children who are being tested in this way, but also those whom they may later encounter in life. Let me explain.

Twenty years ago, I helped run a support group in East London for mothers with babies and small children. These were parents who were not coping and wanted support. There was a psychologist, a Community Psychiatric Nurse, a social worker and me. The mothers went off for a discussion led by the social worker and CPN, while the rest of us, which included some creche workers, organised activities for the children. (This is of course how why it was possible for me to take my baby to work with me from the age of three weeks old!)

It was often possible to predict fairly accurately what would become of these children when they grew up. This is depressing, but quite true. I have subsequently heard of how these children ended up in their early twenties; I still have a lot of dealings in the area. For instance, one boy of three was ferociously angry and aggressive with all females. He would kick and punch his mother, who did not resist, simply saying feebly: ’Oh, Jadon, don’t’ (His name was not really Jadon, by the way). Jadon would target any little girls in the group, rushing at them and knocking them over. He would spit at women and lash out at them. I was the only man working in this project and consequently the only person there whom he respected or would allow to have anything to do with him. We need not go into the reasons for his behaviour, which was not really his fault. He had witnessed his mother being beaten by various men, for one thing. The point about Jadon is that we all knew perfectly well that unless drastic action was taken, he would go on to be abusive to girls in later life. The mother stopped coming and we lost track of her. A couple of years ago, when he was twenty one, Jadon was convicted of a particularly brutal rape. Nobody who knew him as a three year-old was the least bit surprised.

This is the sort of thing which make it a really good idea to see how children are behaving socially at two; one can often tell how they will then be behaving at twenty two. For many of us, the measure of a good society is the extent to which it protects and looks out for the interests of its weaker members. Too give another reason why it is good to identify children who are unable to play appropriately and interact well with other children at the age of two, one need only look at schools. It only takes one or two disruptive children who are unable to sit down and listen to a story being read, to make teaching in a primary school class very difficult. If in addition to being unable to sit down, these children wander round the room physically attacking other children, then all teaching will become impossible. The teacher and any assistants will simply have to focus on these disruptive children and the quiet and well behaved kids who want to learn, will end up being ignored. This happens a lot. This means that other children’s education is damaged, which is not fair, unless we spot these children early on and take steps to help them. One can often identify these children too at the age of two.

I have an idea that many of those home educating parents who object to identifying children of this sort early on, come from nice homes and find it impossible to imagine the sorts of things about which I have been talking. Believe me, it is possible to spot children who will lead chaotic, disorganised lives very early and it is sometimes possible to do something about it.

27 comments:

  1. And what, precisely is likely to be done about it? There doesn't seem much point in identifying children who are at risk at two, if all support services are stretched to breaking point.

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  2. Suzyg said...And what, precisely is likely to be done about it?
    This is exactly my question. So they test a child and discover a problem. Will they they then draft in services to help? No, of course not. They usually say "see your health visitor regularly" or "we dont treat/assess/diagnose until the age of 8" So by the time the child is 8 there is very little chance of changing an outcome, OR the workload for those in charge of 'fixing' the child is much greater.
    Then there is the other worry, which is that professionals will start to look for things that arent there. My dd suffers selective mutism and wont talk to many people outside her comfort zone so NEVER spoke to HV's or nursery workers - of course they assumed there must be a problems when in truth she never shut up at home :) Equally dd didnt walk until she was nearly 18mths, and we had a HV tell us there were issues with her legs which of course there werent. And on the flipside to that, at 8 she needed gromits after me taking her for many many hearing tests and told she was fine, when they finally picked up her issues she could hear virtually nothing.
    Its like when they measure a child who seems a bit short- what are they going to do? Stretch the child?
    Early assessment often just means more time to worry about potential problems, that often are outgrown or not there, and in a lot of cases unnecessary interference and family disruption.

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  3. What a hypocrite, yet again. Everyone else should have their child checked out, but not Simon, who made sure he was out when the health visitor came calling. So not only did he waste public money (How many times did they try to visit or contact you? Did you ever actually tell them you did not want to see them?), he puts his child at risk of undiagnosed conditions and then complains when others appear to suggest the same approach.

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  4. 'What a hypocrite, yet again. Everyone else should have their child checked out, but not Simon, who made sure he was out when the health visitor came calling. '

    The Health Visitor actually came to see the mother; the fact that the baby was not present did not concern her. Do you even know why Health Visitors make that visit a week or so after the birth? I have an idea that since my daughter was in any case being seen by every week by the various speech therapists, psychologists, health visitors, doctors and teachers with whom I worked and socialised, any problems would have been picked up!
    Simon

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  5. I didn't think HVs did make a visit a week or so after the birth - it's usually the community midwife, for obvious reasons.

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  6. 'I didn't think HVs did make a visit a week or so after the birth - it's usually the community midwife, for obvious reasons'

    I think it safe to assume that we all know the difference between a midwife and a Health Visitor. In our case, the community midwife was not involved in the case. The Health Visitor came round in early September, 1993; about ten days after the birth. I have no idea whether this is still the routine and it has, in any case, little to do with the topic about which I posted.
    Simon.

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  7. Any comment on what might be done if two year olds with potential problems are spotted?

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  8. suzyg said...
    Any comment on what might be done if two year olds with potential problems are spotted?'

    Yes. Stop the bombing of Libya and use the money to target toddlers at risk of developing into troubled children. More speech therapists, psychologists and support groups. Re-invigorate society with moral values. Make sure that the importance of stable family life is emphasised and encouraged.
    Simon.

    '

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  9. "Do you even know why Health Visitors make that visit a week or so after the birth?"

    In the two areas I've given birth in, this visit would have been the first of several over the first 5 years, all of which involved checking the baby's physical and mental development (checking hips, hearing tests, sight tests, weighing the baby, checking they are responding appropriately to stimulus, are they sitting unsupported, immunisations, etc). The health visitor asked very few questions about me and only of the general, are you coping, have you experienced any depression type questions. I'm reasonably sure that being seen by various professionals in passing is not a substitute for appropriate developmental assessments.

    Now, it's fine that you had the choice to accept these visits or not, but it seems hypocritical to criticize others for arguing against making something compulsory when it's likely to be more invasive that the visits you chose avoided. You seem happy that you had the option to avoid health visitor tests for your child. Can you really not see why others might be unhappy about the compulsory nature of similar tests?

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  10. "Too give another reason why ..."

    "too"
    ■ adverb
    1- to a higher degree than is desirable, permissible, or possible. ▶informal very.
    2- in addition. ▶moreover.


    "to"
    ■ prep. toward; for; in contrast with; in order to

    ■ adv. toward the previous condition; in accordance with; in honor of; for the good health of (during a toast with drinks)


    " Too" means also or excessive.

    I ate too much chocolate. (excessive)
    My little brother wanted some too. (also)

    "To" is correct in every other context, except the number two.

    Infinitive: to be or not to be. (in front of a verb)
    preposition: Go to school.

    Grammar and spelling dear boy, grammar and spelling!

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  11. 'Can you really not see why others might be unhappy about the compulsory nature of similar tests? '

    Very important to distinguish between 'compulsory' and 'routine'. Do you supposer that these new tests will be compulsory in the sense that parents avoiding them will be liable to prosecution?
    Simon.

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  12. 'Grammar and spelling dear boy, grammar and spelling!'

    I am inclined to attribute this to being a typographical error, rather than my being deficient in knowledge of either grammar or spelling.

    Simon.

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  13. "Very important to distinguish between 'compulsory' and 'routine'."

    Very true, and hopefully it will be routine and not compulsory. However, the newspaper article that appears to have triggered the alarm states that they will be compulsory. Hopefully this is just the journalist misrepresenting the Government's intentions rather than a true reflection of their plans (and looking at the press release, I think it only applies to children in early years education placements, so it would only be compulsory for these children).

    I've had a look and failed to find these 'vociferous home educating types' who are against these plans for no good reason. Any chance of the name of an email list name and a post number?

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  14. "Yes. Stop the bombing of Libya and use the money to target toddlers at risk of developing into troubled children."

    So the home educators, railing against the Government for putting the cart before the horse on email lists, are not wrong.

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  15. I've had a look and failed to find these 'vociferous home educating types' who are against these plans for no good reason. Any chance of the name of an email list name and a post number? '

    I wonder how hard you have looked? Mike Fortune-Wood posted today on HE-UK, saying that he thinks it is all a wicked plot to lower the age of compulsory education in this country.
    Simon.

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  16. Simon wrote,
    "Mike Fortune-Wood posted today on HE-UK, saying that he thinks it is all a wicked plot to lower the age of compulsory education in this country."

    There is no mention of lowering the age of compulsory education in the message I saw. He notes that the Government appears to want to increase the amount of time children under five spend in education settings whilst parents work and this appears to be true. The Government extended the free entitlement for all three and four year olds to 15 hours a week from September last year. They also plan to consult in the autumn on making these hours more flexible so they fit the parent's working hours better. This is not controversial, it's fact.

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  17. Simon replied,
    "'I've had a look and failed to find these 'vociferous home educating types' who are against these plans for no good reason. Any chance of the name of an email list name and a post number? '

    I wonder how hard you have looked? Mike Fortune-Wood posted today on HE-UK"


    And besides which, this email was sent after you posted your blog article. Can you give details of the original 'vociferous home educating types' who are against these plans for no good reason that you mention in this article?

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  18. Actually, Mike says nothing about a 'wicked plot'. He doesn't even say he's against it, although he doesn't think it will work. And he doesn't say anything about lowering the age of compulsory education either. I'd be surprised if he did. I've heard nothing to suggest that this is being considered.

    However, he does make a couple of sensible points.
    Firstly, that the government are aiming to identify children whose development is compromised by environmental factors such as poverty and poor parenting, and that they believe this can be corrected by daycare. As there has already been publicity about the idea that they can identify potential criminals in their early years, it's likely that this is part of the agenda.
    And secondly, that the government want to get parents off benefits and back to work, and to take control of the education of young children. It's hard to argue against either of these conjectures either.

    Can't see anything 'crackpot' about any of that.

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  19. Simon said "Yes. Stop the bombing of Libya and use the money to target toddlers at risk of developing into troubled children. More speech therapists, psychologists and support groups. Re-invigorate society with moral values. Make sure that the importance of stable family life is emphasised and encouraged."

    That's what *you* would like to happen. That's not very likely though, is it? Which suggests that the plan to assess two year olds is a political point-scoring exercise, that, if implemented will overload services even more, resulting in even fewer children who need it getting support.

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  20. "Re-invigorate society with moral values."

    Ooh, gosh, you do have the real tone of an 80s Tory sometimes, Simon! A sort of male Ann Widdicombe.

    We had a lovely Health Visitor who I found very helpful with child number one - organised a couple of referrals without any fuss. By child number two there weren't enough HVs to do visits. They sent out a stupid questionnaire addressed to the wrong names and that was all we ever saw of them.

    I don't see any problem with offering services like developmental checks and so on. But I can't see any serious money going into that, whatever they say.

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  21. 'Ooh, gosh, you do have the real tone of an 80s Tory sometimes, Simon! A sort of male Ann Widdicombe.'

    And this is a bad thing, right?

    Simon.

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  22. 'There is no mention of lowering the age of compulsory education in the message I saw.'

    Perhaps you are not familiar with Mike Fortune-Woods ideology. He said:

    'In fact the whole thrust of government policy is to expand child care and
    enable parents to work while taking control over children's education from
    ever earlier ages.'

    This is a continuation of the theme which he expounded at the recent conference in London. he feels that the need to enrol a child at nursery to be sure of the chosen school and also early years education in general, is part of a deliberate policy to put in place a de facto earlier age of compulsory education that the current five. I thought this was generally known. He relates this latest announcment to this supposed move.

    Simon.

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  23. Do you disagree with that last paragraph, Simon?

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  24. "he feels that the need to enrol a child at nursery to be sure of the chosen school and also early years education in general, is part of a deliberate policy to put in place a de facto earlier age of compulsory education that the current five."

    Certainly it has that effect, whether it's a deliberate policy is unknowable unless they make a statement to that effect, so either yours or Mike's speculation could be accurate. What's the reasoning behind your belief that they don't want to effectively lower the age of compulsory education (without necessarily changing the law)? If they didn't want to do this, couldn't they make it easier for a child to get into a school if they haven't been to the attached nursery, make it a level playing field in some way?

    The fact that the Government are increasing the number of free schooling hours for under 5s, are going to make those hours more flexible so that more working parents can take advantage of them and also see early intervention as crucial for many children does tend to support the theory that the Government want more children in early education. I don't think there's any doubt that they want more children in early education, is there?

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  25. PS, still no information about the 'vociferous home educating types' who are against these plans for no good reason that you mention in this article? I take it they were imaginary people, some kind of caricature in your head?

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  26. 'In fact the whole thrust of government policy is to extend childcare and enable parents to work while taking control over children's education from ever earlier ages.'

    Imho, that's a bit wordy for the title of his next book.

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  27. >>>>'In fact the whole thrust of government policy is to extend childcare and enable parents to work while taking control over children's education from ever earlier ages.'<<<<

    A government minister on Woman's Hour yesterday said pretty much exactly that. How is this disputed?

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