Developmental trajectories of reading and maths achievement: discriminating between the delayed and atypical

Many children in the UK struggle to achieve the expected standards in reading and mathematics in the primary curriculum. Poor skills in these areas across the lifespan ultimately result in significant losses to the economy.

Rather than using single time-point assessments, which are associated with limited precision and predictive validity, this project will use the potential of large-scale longitudinal data to develop and test models of developmental trajectories, with the aim of better characterising, validating and predicting individual differences in children's reading and mathematics achievement through secondary analyses.

It will explore the extent to which the developmental progression of educational skills can be partitioned into discrete clusters of trajectories, such as those resulting from developmental delay or atypical development.