Dr Tess Gregory

Identifying factors contributing to shifts in children’s development on school entry in NSW over the past decade

The aim of this project was to conduct a critical analysis of the AEDC data for NSW children to understand the factors contributing to the changes in child development outcomes over time.

Breakfast skipping among children and adolescents in South Australia

Eating a regular, healthy breakfast is required to support good health, wellbeing and development throughout childhood and adolescence.

Analysis of gender differences between boys and girls in South Australia

The Department for Education commissioned this report to understand how such gender differences in early childhood may influence outcomes later in life.

Child development at school entry and student wellbeing six years later

It has been well established that children's development at school entry is associated with their later academic achievement, but less is known about whether there is also an association with other measures of school success, such as students' social and emotional wellbeing.

Social support helps protects against depressed mood in adolescence

The goals of the current study were to identify different trajectories of sadness from Grade 6 to 9 in Australian school students, and to explore the role that social support from school, teachers, friends and families play in supporting students’ mental health.

Review of the quality of evidence for preschool and school-based programs to support social and emotional skills, perseverance and academic self-concept

This project provides guidance to help school leaders review the evidence for different programs, as well as a review of universal, evidence-based pre-school and school-based social and emotional learning programs available in Australia.

Wellbeing and Engagement Collection (WEC) in the South Australian school system

The aim of the WEC is to help teachers, school leaders and policy makers better understand and support the wellbeing and engagement of their students.

Wellbeing and academic achievement paper

In this report, we explore the relationship between student wellbeing, school engagement, and academic achievement.

Participation in the Wellbeing and Engagement collection in South Australian schools

In South Australian schools, students in Grade 4 to 12 are invited to participate in an annual survey about their wellbeing and engagement in school, referred to as the Wellbeing and Engagement Collection.

National School Readiness Project

Researchers at the Institute were engaged to undertake the National School Readiness Project, which aimed to describe current practice across education authorities in assessing or describing child development status at school entry and use evidence to identify areas where the scope/quality of curren

Review of trends in disabilities, mental health disorders and complex needs among children and adolescents

The aim of the project was to provide the South Australian Department for Education with a synthesis of high-quality evidence on the population prevalence of various disabilities among school-aged children.

The Wellbeing and Engagement Collection (WEC): Promoting the importance of students’ wellbeing and mental health in schools

o help raise the profile of student wellbeing in the education system in Australia, The Kids Research Institute Australia and SA Department for Education through the Fraser Mustard Centre, set out to adapt and trial a population-level student wellbeing measure that could be used across the entire public and p

Evaluation of the Community Playgroup Program

This evaluation explored the facilitators & barriers that influence Community Playgroup attendance, and the impact of attending playgroups on child development.

Provision of Engagement Services for the AEDC

Support services to the Department of Education and Training and the AEDC State and Territory Coordinators and their support staff across Australia.

Associations between mental health profiles and later school outcomes

The dual-factor model of mental health proposes that high wellbeing and low distress are necessary to define mental health. This study used latent profile analysis to identify mental health profiles in a sample of 3,587 Australian grade 6 students and explored the association between mental health profiles and school outcomes measured in grades 7 and 9.

Early childhood education quality and child development in Lao PDR

Globally, as scale up of early childhood education (ECE) continues, monitoring ECE quality is imperative to promote service aspects that drive positive outcomes for children. Monitoring of ECE quality in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) is scarce, limited by challenges in varied conceptualisations of quality, lack of measurement tools that reflect local culture and context, and implementation difficulties in low resource settings.

Screen Time and Parent-Child Talk When Children Are Aged 12 to 36 Months

Growing up in a language-rich home environment is important for children's language development in the early years. The concept of "technoference" (technology-based interference) suggests that screen time may be interfering with opportunities for talk and interactions between parent and child; however, limited longitudinal evidence exists exploring this association. 

Mental health profiles and academic achievement in Australian school students

This study explored mental health profiles in Australian school students using indicators of well-being (i.e., optimism, life satisfaction, and happiness) and psychological distress (i.e., sadness and worries). The sample included 75,757 students (ages 8-18 years) who completed the 2019 South Australian Wellbeing and Engagement Collection.

The relationship between early adolescent cyberbullying victimization and later emotional wellbeing and academic achievement

This study addresses a knowledge gap in the literature about early adolescent cyberbullying victimization and the related positive and negative emotional wellbeing and academic achievement outcomes experienced over time. 

Clustering of Wellbeing, Engagement and Academic Outcomes in Australian Primary Schools

The mental health and wellbeing of young people has important consequences for students and society. Schools are a logical environment for management and early intervention of wellbeing, mental health and engagement with school. Interventions aimed at improving mental health and wellbeing in education systems requires knowledge of how wellbeing is clustered at a school level. Cluster-randomised trials, and regression analyses of such data also require knowledge of clustering.

The Relationship Between Traditional and Cyber Bullying Victimization in Early Adolescence and Emotional Wellbeing: A Cross-Sectional, Population-Based Study

Despite the wealth of knowledge about the impact of bullying victimization, information gaps exist about how traditional and cyber bullying in early adolescence is associated with emotional wellbeing, namely, indicators of positive wellbeing.

Prevalence of breakfast skipping among children and adolescents: a cross-sectional population level study

Interventions to promote breakfast consumption are a popular strategy to address early life inequalities. It is important to understand the epidemiology of children and adolescents who skip breakfast so that interventions and policy can be appropriately considered.

Prevalence of electronic device use before bed among Australian children and adolescents: a cross-sectional population level study

To understand the prevalence of children and adolescents’ electronic device use (EDU) in the hour before bed and identify sociodemographic groups that are at increased risk of problematic use.

Breakfast skipping and cognitive and emotional engagement at school: A cross-sectional population level study

Research on the consequences of breakfast skipping among students tends to focus on academic outcomes, rather than student wellbeing or engagement at school. This study investigated the association between breakfast skipping and cognitive and emotional aspects of school engagement.

Basic epidemiology of wellbeing among children and adolescents: A cross-sectional population level study

Wellbeing and mental health are fundamental rights of children and adolescents essential for sustainable development. Understanding the epidemiology of child and adolescent wellbeing is essential to informing population health approaches to improving wellbeing and preventing mental illness.

Data Resource Profile: The South Australian Well-being and Engagement Collection (WEC)

Mental health and well-being during childhood and adolescence have been shown to impact on health, educational attainment and employment in adulthood.1–3 Although health and education systems worldwide have long recognized the importance of promoting student well-being,4–6 population-wide monitoring of well-being remains uncommon.

The Impact of Bullying Victimization in Early Adolescence on Subsequent Psychosocial and Academic Outcomes across the Adolescent Period: A Systematic Review

Bullying is a widespread global issue, with serious consequences for victimized individuals. The current systematic review is the first to explore the consequences of bullying in early adolescence on psychological and academic functioning across the adolescent period. Five databases were examined, yielding 28 relevant studies.

Inequalities in child development at school entry: A repeated cross-sectional analysis of the Australian Early Development Census 2009-2018

Australia is the only developed country to consistently undertake a developmental census of its children nationwide. The repeated collection of the Australian Early Development Census (AEDC) has provided an unprecedented opportunity to examine the prevalence of developmental vulnerability across Australia's states and territories, the socio-economic distribution of developmental vulnerability across jurisdictions, and how these distributions might have changed over time.

The role of social support in differentiating trajectories of adolescent depressed mood

This study explored the extent to which disaggregated support from family, peers, close friendships, teachers, and schools predicted membership into identified, sex-specific trajectories of depressed mood in 3210 Australian adolescents (49% females) based on self-report data collected at four annual time points from school Grade 6 to 9 (ages 10–16).

Associations between School Readiness and Student Wellbeing: A Six-Year Follow Up Study

It is well established that children’s school readiness is associated with their later academic achievement, but less is known about whether school readiness is also associated with other measures of school success, such as students’ social and emotional wellbeing. While some previous research has shown a link between early social and emotional development and student wellbeing, results are mixed and the strength of these relationships vary depending on whether data is based on child, teachers or parents ratings and which specific student wellbeing outcomes are measured.

Measuring early child development in low and middle income countries: Investigating the validity of the early Human Capability Index

Inclusion of early child development in the United Nations Sustainable Development Agenda raises issues of how this goal should be monitored, particularly in low resource settings. The aim of this paper was to explore the validity of the early Human Capability Index (eHCI); a population measure designed to capture the holistic development of children aged 3-5 years. Convergent, divergent, discriminant and concurrent validity were examined by exploring the associations between eHCI domains and child (sex, age, stunting status, preschool attendance) and family (maternal education, home learning environment) characteristics. Analyses were repeated using data from seven low and middle income countries.

Exploring Associations Between Playgroup Attendance and Early Childhood Development at School Entry in Australia: A Cross-Sectional Population-Level Study

Children who attended playgroup had better development at school entry relative to those who had not attended playgroup

Measuring early childhood development in multiple contexts: the internal factor structure and reliability of the early Human Capability Index in seven countries

Findings support the aims of the early Human Capability Index in being adaptable and applicable for use within a range of low and middle income countries

The controlled direct effect of temperament at 2-3 years on cognitive and academic outcomes at 6-7 years

Overall, temperament had small associations with cognitive and academic outcomes after accounting for parenting and confounders

Validity of the Middle Years Development Instrument for Population Monitoring of Student Wellbeing in Australian School Children

This paper reports on a five-year project to measure student wellbeing across an education system using the Middle Years Development Instrument

The social impacts of mining on local communities in Australia

Mining developments are being required to consider how they affect local communities and implement strategies to minimise negative impacts they may be causing

Gestational age and school achievement: A population study

We examined gestational age from preterm to post-term against a national minimum standard for academic achievement in population data.

Associations of parental food-choice control and use of food to soothe with adiposity in childhood and adolescence

Higher parental control over food choice was associated with lower adiposity, but use of food to soothe was not associated with adiposity at ages 7 and 15

Exploring change in the Australian version of the Early Development Instrument

Calculating a critical difference for the percentage of children who are “at risk” and “on track” in addition to the children who are developmentally “vulnerable”

It takes a village to raise a child: The influence and impact of playgroups across Australia

Comprehensive quantitative and qualitative evaluation of Community Playgroups across Australia

Exploring local government areas with significant shifts in child development between 2009 and 2012 on the Australian Early Development Census

This project analysed AEDC results across Australia, to identify communities with significant improvement (decreases in developmental vulnerability) between 2009 and 2012

How many infants are temperamentally difficult?

In this letter, the authors respond to the commentary on Chong et al. “How many infants are temperamentally difficult?”; by correcting errors, & then...

Data resource profile: The Australian early development index (AEDI)

This paper describes the Australian Early Development Index, a developmental census conducted by the Australian Government across the entire population of...

Associations Between the Early Development Instrument at Age 5, and Reading and Numeracy Skills at Ages 8, 10 and 12: a Prospective Linked Data Study

The objective of this paper is to determine how well the EDI predicts a child's later literacy and numeracy outcomes as assessed by the National Assessment...

Methodological approach to exploring change in the Australia Early Development Instrument (AEDI): The estimation of a critical difference

This report provides the technical details for the methodology calculated to determine "how big" a difference in the AEDI results between 2009 and 2012 is...

Jurisdictional, socioeconomic and gender inequalities in child health and development:

Early child development may have important consequences for inequalities in health and well-being. This paper explores population level patterns of child...