In sports, it is probably the most likely: The youngest, usually the smallest children in the age group have more trouble keeping up with the older ones. The date of birth determines how easy or difficult it is for a child to achieve the best results in class. Studies show that this applies not only in sports, but also in other subjects: the younger ones in the class do not perform as well as the older overall.
Moreover, various studies show that the risk for certain diseases appears to be related to the relative age of the school class. After all, in a school class children come together whose age can be a year or even more apart - in the first years of life that can mean a huge difference.
A team of researchers in the UK now report that learning disabilities, ADHD and depression are more prevalent in children, who are among the younger in the classroom.
For the study published in the journal "Jama Pediatrics", the group evaluated data from a good one million children in England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland, where, by the way, the same cut-off dates apply.
The team led by Jeremy Brown of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine each divided the children into four groups - from the oldest in the class to the youngest. It then determined how many children and adolescents were diagnosed with learning disabilities, ADHD or depression before the age of 16.
The results:
- While among the youngest children, 236 out of every 10,000 were diagnosed with ADHD, they were among the oldest 174 out of every 10,000.
- In the youngest group, 104 out of every 10,000 children were diagnosed as having learning disabilities, the oldest being 81 out of every 10,000.
- The diagnosis of depression received 109 out of 10,000 of the youngest children, 83 out of 10,000 of the oldest children.
MORE ON THE SUBJECT
The study itself can not provide answers as to why the younger children are more affected than the older ones. However, the research team makes some assumptions: because the younger children in a class are more likely to be mature than the older ones, they may be more likely to get an ADHD diagnosis even though they do not have the syndrome at all. However, it is also possible that there are more commonly undiagnosed, ie undiagnosed ADHD cases among the oldest children in the class.
The fact that depression also occurs more frequently among the youngest students is, in the view of the research group, also related to school performance, which is related to relative age in the classroom. Because it is already known that students who get bad grades, have a higher risk of depression.
A simple solution, how to reduce the increased disease risk for the youngest, the scientists are unfortunately not ready. If you postpone the enrollment deadline, only other children will be the youngest. One option would be to test whether the child is already mature enough or should wait one more year before enrolling, the researchers say.
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