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Objective: Starting school is an important milestone for young children, their families and educators. This study is aimed to examine parent’s socio-demographic characteristics and views about their children’s readiness of primary school and to determine children’s early developmental characteristics, levels of emotional and behavioral problems with the change in compulsory school age in child and adolescent psychiatry clinic.
Method: File informations of 204 cases that were referred to Tekirdag State Hospital, child psychiatry clinic between July 2012 and October 2012 were reviewed retrospectively. Socio-demographic data were obtained with a semi-structured questionnaire and the level of emotional and behavioral problems of children was rated with Conner’s Parent Rating Scale.
Results: The mean age of the children participating in the study was 5.48±0.45. 38.8% of mothers (n=74) were primary school graduates. 52% of families had an average monthly income of 1000-3000 TL. Eighty eight percent of children were found not to receive kindergarten education. 64% of parents (n = 127) couldn’t report a specific reason for their children’s readiness for school. According to them, their children were not ready in general meaning. Conner’s Parent Rating Scale mean total score was 30.21 ± 20:53. 35% of girls and 42% of boys had a behavioral problem score over 30 points (p=0.47). Scale scores of children with psychiatric and chronic physical disease were significantly higher than healthy group (p<0.05).
Conclusion: School starting age was strongly correlated with attainment. Children who were older in the year group attained higher scores in both mathematics and reading attainment. In a study, children of mothers with low level of education demonstrated a consistent pattern of lower scores on academic readiness and achievement tests at 6 and 7 years than those of highly educated mothers . A recent study has shown that approaches to learning are negatively related to children’s problem behavior and positively related to their positive social skills . Detailed examination of related personal, familial and environmental factors determining the status of children’s readiness of school is important. Preschool education programs and opportunities about learning at home should be increased to support school readiness adequately.