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Lookup NU author(s): Dr Svetlana Glinyanaya, Professor Judith RankinORCiD
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC BY 4.0).
© 2024 The Authors. Paediatric and Perinatal Epidemiology published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd. Background: Children born with major congenital anomalies (CAs) have lower academic achievement compared with their peers, but the existing evidence is restricted to a number of specific CAs. Objectives: To investigate academic outcomes at ages 11 and 16 in children with major isolated structural CAs and children with Down or Turner syndromes. Methods: This population-based cohort study linked data on approximately 11,000 school-aged children born with major CAs in 1994–2004 registered by four regional CA registries in England with education data from the National Pupil Database (NPD). The comparison group was a random sample of children without major CAs from the background population recorded in the NPD that were frequency matched (5:1) to children with CAs by birth year, sex and geographical area. Results: Overall, 71.9%, 73.0% and 80.9% of children with isolated structural CAs achieved the expected attainment level at age 11 compared to 78.3%, 80.6% and 86.7% of the comparison group in English language, Mathematics and Science, respectively. Children with nervous system CAs as a whole had the lowest proportion who achieved the expected attainment at age 11. At age 16, 46.9% of children with CAs achieved the expected level compared to 52.5% of their peers. Major CAs were associated with being up to 9% (95% confidence interval [CI] 8%, 11%) and 12% (95% CI 9%, 14%) less likely to achieve expected levels at ages 11 and 16, respectively, after adjustment for socioeconomic deprivation. Conclusions: Although many children with isolated CAs achieved the expected academic level at ages 11 and 16, they were at higher risk of underachievement compared to their peers. These stark yet cautiously encouraging results are important for counselling parents of children with specific CAs and also highlight the possible need for special education support to reduce potential academic difficulties.
Author(s): Glinianaia SV, Tan J, Morris JK, Brigden J, Evans HER, Loane M, Neville AJ, Rankin J
Publication type: Article
Publication status: Published
Journal: Paediatric and Perinatal Epidemiology
Year: 2024
Volume: 38
Issue: 5
Pages: 411-425
Print publication date: 01/07/2024
Online publication date: 06/02/2024
Acceptance date: 21/01/2024
Date deposited: 20/02/2024
ISSN (print): 0269-5022
ISSN (electronic): 1365-3016
Publisher: John Wiley and Sons Inc.
URL: https://doi.org/10.1111/ppe.13049
DOI: 10.1111/ppe.13049
Data Access Statement: The Department for Education is the controller of the data that support the findings of this study. Restrictions apply to the availability of these data, which were used under license for this study. Third-party requests for the data will require permission from the Department for Education.
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