Looked-after status

Proportion of Pre-school children with ‘likely difficulties’ on the SDQ  by 'Looked After' status of child

Children who had ever been ‘Looked After’, either at home or away from home, were more likely to have difficulties in all areas of the SDQ, compared with children who had never had ‘Looked After’ status. Differences were particularly strong on the Total Difficulties, Conduct Problems, and Hyperactivity/inattention scales.

Proportion of P3 children with ‘likely difficulties’ on the SDQ by 'Looked After' status of child 

Children who currently or previously had Looked After status were far more likely to have difficulties than children who had never had Looked After status. Overall, children who had at some point had Looked After status were more than two-and-a-half times more likely to have difficulties. More than one in three Looked After children had difficulties with hyperactivity/inattention, compared with one in six children who had not been Looked After.

Notes

SDQ - Goodman’ Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ) is a brief behavioural screening questionnaire for children. It covers five areas: Conduct Problems, Hyperactivity/inattention, Peer Relationship Problems, Emotional Symptoms and Pro-social Behaviours. The first four of these are rated negatively (that is, they pick up difficulties in children). These can be added together to give a Total Difficulties score, which shows an indication of overall difficulties that the child is experiencing. The final area, Pro-social Behaviours, is a positively scored scale, so it shows things the child does e.g. ‘is helpful if someone is hurt or upset’. The Total Difficulties score and the sub-scale scores can be split into groups which indicate whether a child has no difficulties, possible difficulties or likely difficulties.