Annual Report 2004
Minister's foreword
From the Minister for Family and Community Services
The Howard Government understands the importance of long-term investment in developing the evidence base for social policy in Australia. Growing Up in Australia - the Longitudinal Study of Australian Children (commonly known as LSAC) is one such investment.
Until the Coalition Government provided the funding for LSAC, Australia was one of the few OECD countries not to have a national longitudinal study of very young children. As we have seen from the experiences of Canada, the United Kingdom and New Zealand, studies that follow children over time from the early years are vitally important to the development of sound and effective policies. They help governments, policy makers, researchers and communities understand how different factors influence and affect children's pathways as they grow and mature into adults. The study will also help us understand how well our young children are doing on a range of indicators - social and emotional development, language and school achievement, and mental and physical health. It will also guide our understanding about how and why these results and outcomes might change over time. By improving our understanding we can ensure that policy interventions are as effective and timely as they can be.
Part of the uniqueness of LSAC is in the tracking of two different age cohorts of children - infants and 4-5 year olds. Following the infants will enable us to understand the influences of the early years of life in Australia on later outcomes. The 4-5 year olds will be followed through a significant transition in their lives, as they move from home or child care or preschool into the school environment. Another highlight of the study is the richness of the data collected from the children's parents as well as their teachers and child carers, giving a well-rounded picture of the child's life and experiences.
This is the first annual report on LSAC, and coincides with the release of the data from the first wave of the study. The report explains the basis for the study and highlights some of the interesting findings. As future waves of LSAC data are collected we will have a high quality source of information on the dynamic nature of Australian children's lives and the factors that impact on their wellbeing and development. I hope that policy analysts and researchers find this report useful in the valuable work they undertake in contributing to the best foundation we can provide for Australian children.
Senator the Hon. Kay Patterson
Minister for Family and Community Services
Director's foreword
I have been delighted to witness the production of the first results from Growing Up in Australia - the Longitudinal Study of Australian Children (LSAC). It demonstrates that the great deal of careful thought and work that has gone into the design and implementation of this landmark study is already bearing fruit. To have the first data collection completed and to start analysis are significant milestones in the survey process.
On behalf of the Australian Institute of Family Studies, I extend our thanks to the Australian Government officials, the academics, the interviewers, and especially the many families who have helped make this first wave of the study such a success. I also particularly thank the Minister for Family and Community Services, Senator the Hon. Kay Patterson, for her strong support.
The Institute is proud to lead the consortium of research agencies that conducts LSAC, and we are thankful for the hard work and commitment shown by members of the Consortium Advisory Group who assisted with the design of the structure and content of the survey. This is our first annual report, and with subsequent waves of the data - we will be out in the field again next year for Wave 2 - we will further reap the benefits that only large-scale longitudinal studies can provide.
The topics covered by the survey are comprehensive. The children in the study already have more than two thousand variables attached to each of their data files. The six broad domains covered in the survey are: health, education, child care, family functioning, child functioning and socio-demographics. Teams of expert researchers from the consortium, as well as other experts, developed questions for each domain, and we and the Department of Family and Community Services consulted widely on the final content of the questionnaires.
The way the data are collected is quite innovative. Using a team of some 130 interviewers we interviewed parents and sent questionnaires to teachers and child carers. Interviewers spent considerable time inside the homes of the children, administering questionnaires and taking direct measurements of the child (such as height and weight) and, for the older children, administering some early literacy tests. I want to thank both I-view and Colmar Brunton Social Research for their outstanding commitment to the fieldwork process for Wave 1 and, once again, the more than 10,000 families in the study who so generously contributed their time, information and thoughts.
One of the innovative aspects of the study is the inclusion of time-use diaries. For the first time in Australia, we know how infants and 4-5 year old children spend their time. This information will be of great use to policy makers and researchers as we continue to develop our understanding about what children do in their early years and how this might influence later life outcomes. How much time do children spend outdoors? How often do they eat? How often do they see particular members of their families and how do they play?
The beauty of the Longitudinal Study of Australian Children is that it can allow us to give a collective voice to our children. While we cannot gather much information from them directly at these very young ages, we can gather information from people who are closest to them to paint pictures of what their lives are like. Over time, we will see their stories unfold in ways that will give those who make and implement policy a very valuable view of the determinants of different outcomes for children and insights into how we can best support families to raise healthy and happy children.
Professor Alan Hayes
Director
Australian Institute of Family Studies
Key personnel
Survey Management Team
- Dr Alison Morehead, Deputy Director (Research) and LSAC Executive Project Manager, Australian Institute of Family Studies. Alison has overall responsibility for LSAC within the Institute, which she joined in May 2004.
- Associate Professor Ann Sanson, LSAC Project Director, University of Melbourne. Ann was at the Australian Institute of Family Studies from 2000 to 2004, on secondment from the University of Melbourne. She held the roles of Principal Research Fellow, Deputy Director and Acting Director during this time. As LSAC Project Director, she also led the early development work on LSAC. She now fills the role of Project Director on a part-time basis.
- Carol Soloff, LSAC Project Manager, Australian Institute of Family Studies. Carol was initially part of the LSAC team as Survey Manager from July 2002, outposted from the Australian Bureau of Statistics. Carol formally joined the Institute as LSAC Project Manager in July 2004.
Project Operations Team
- Linda Bencic, Design Manager
- Anna Ferro, Research Officer
- Grace Soriano, Research Officer
- Emma White, Survey Officer
- Robert Johnstone, Data Manager
- Sebastian Misson, Data Administrator
- Joanne Slater, Graduate Assistant
- Christine Millward, original Design Manager
Assistance was received from Institute researchers, Michael Alexander and Jenny Baxter, for the "Highlights from Wave 1" section of this report.
Consortium Advisory Group members
- Dr John Ainley is Deputy CEO and Research Director of the National and International Surveys Program at the Australian Council for Educational Research.
- Dr Donna Berthelsen is a member of the Centre for Learning Innovation in the Faculty of Education, and Senior Lecturer in the Faculty of Early Childhood at the Queensland University of Technology.
- Dr Michael Bittman is a Professorial Fellow in the Department of Sociology, School of Social Science, University of New England.
- Dr Linda Harrison is a Senior Lecturer in Early Childhood in the Faculty of Education at Charles Sturt University.
- Dr Jan Nicholson is a Senior Research Fellow in the Institute for Health and Biomedical Innovation and the Centre for Health Research (Public Health), Queensland University of Technology.
- Dr Bryan Rodgers is a Senior Fellow in the Centre for Mental Health Research, the Australian National University.
- Professor Michael Sawyer is Head, Department of Paediatrics and Associate Dean (Women's and Children's Health) at the University of Adelaide and Head, Research and Evaluation Unit, Division of Mental Health at the Child, Youth and Women's Health Service.
- Professor Sven Silburn is Director of the Centre for Developmental Health at Curtin University and a Senior Researcher in the Division of Population Science at the Telethon Institute for Child Health Research, Western Australia.
- Dr Lyndall Strazdins is a Research Fellow in the National Centre for Epidemiology and Population Health, the Australian National University.
- Associate Professor Judy Ungerer is in the Department of Psychology, Division of Linguistics and Psychology, at Macquarie University.
- Professor Graham Vimpani is Professor of Paediatrics and Child Health at the University of Newcastle and Clinical Chair Kaleidoscope: Hunter Children's Health Network.
- Associate Professor Melissa Wake is Director of Research and Public Health in the Centre for Community Child Health, Murdoch Childrens Research Institute, Melbourne.
- Professor Stephen Zubrick is Head of the Division of Population Science at the Telethon Institute for Child Health Research in Western Australia, and Co-Director of the Centre for Developmental Health at Curtin University of Technology.
Consultants
- Dr David Lawrence is Senior Statistician in the Centre for Developmental Health at Curtin University of Technology.
- Professor John Carlin has appointments in the Departments of Paediatrics and Public Health, University of Melbourne, and is Director, Clinical Epidemiology and Biostatistics Unit, Murdoch Childrens Research Institute.
LSAC Scientific and Policy Advisory Group
Australia
- Dr Jan Carter, Consultant, Melbourne
- Professor Alan Hayes, Australian Institute of Family Studies
- Professor Terry Nolan, Department of Public Health, University of Melbourne
- Associate Professor Ann Sanson (Convener), Department of Psychology, University of Melbourne
- Dr Graeme Russell, Department of Psychology, Macquarie University
- Professor Sue Spence, School of Psychology, University of Queensland
- Professor Fiona Stanley, Telethon Institute of Child Health Research, Western Australia
- Dr Christina van Kraayenoord, Schonell Special Education Research Centre, University of Queensland
Canada
- Professor Clyde Hertzman, Department of Health Care and Epidemiology, University of British Columbia
New Zealand
- Dr Richie Poulton, Dunedin Multidisciplinary Health and Development Research Unit, University of Otago
United Kingdom
- Professor Judy Dunn, Institute of Psychiatry, King's College London
United States of America
- Professor Jeanne Brooks-Gunn, Teachers College, Columbia University
- Dr Sarah Friedman, NICHD Study of Early Child Care and Youth Development, National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, Washington
- Dr Jerry West, Early Childhood Longitudinal Study Program, National Center for Education Studies, Washington
Department of Family and Community Services LSAC Project Team
Branch Manager, Strategic Policy Branch
Fiona Dempster
Longitudinal Surveys Section, Strategic Policy Branch
Karen Wilson, Paula Chevalier, Jane Dickenson, Peter Walkear and Margaret Wada