Key Research & Policy Questions
The project examines human development in Singapore by using innovative methods to understand factors that can promote Singaporean children’s early childhood development and provide input that can help address these factors. The main research questions are:
- What is the state of Singaporean children’s development in multiple domains?
- How do family, childcare/early education institutions, community, and the state interact to shape the developmental trajectory of Singapore’s children?
- Identify vulnerable groups & risk factors – leaving no child behind in an inclusive society
- How do early childhood environment and development affect middle-childhood and early adolescent development?
Study Design
Our research addresses policy concerns such as how caregiving arrangements, preschool education, the roles of mother, father and extended family, cross-cultural family background, family resources, time and technology use, living arrangements, and family dynamics/relations affect children’s social-emotional, cognitive, and health development, the impact of COVID-19, schools, peers, children’s time on digital devices, sleep, and active activities, obesity, puberty, experience with Primary School Leaving Examination (PSLE), child and mothers’ mental health, and what roles community and government can play in improving child outcomes.
SG LEADS Families
A nationally representative sample of households with Singaporean children 0-6 across 52 planning areas.
Study Timeline
Wave 3 (2024-2028)
BUILDING HUMAN CAPACITY IN SINGAPORE’S POPULATION: A National Longitudinal Study of Child and Maternal Well-being
Funded by A*STAR under its Human Potential – Prenatal/ Early Childhood Grant (H24P2M0009)
Amount: S$4,999,998
Project duration: April 2024 to March 2028
Lead Principal Investigator: Professor Wei-Jun Jean Yeung (Director, Social Sciences, IHDP, A*STAR)
Team PIs: Assistant Professor Cheung Hoi Shan (Psychology and Child and Human Development, NIE, NTU), Assistant Professor Ding Xiaopan (Psychology, NUS), Professor Lee Yung Seng (Paediatrics, NUS), Professor Lim Sun Sun (Communication & Technology, SMU)
Co-Is: Assistant Professor Mu Zheng (Sociology, NUS), Assistant Professor Ooi Shu Qin, Delicia (Paediatrics, NUS), Associate Professor Ryan Y. Hong (Psychology, NUS), Dr Cai Shirong (Translational Neurosciences, IHDP, A*STAR)
Collaborators: Associate Professor Kathy Kar Man Shum (The University of Hong Kong), Associate Professor Shian-Ling Keng (Monash University)
SG-LEADS Wave 3 is comprised of 3 work packages aimed at addressing early childhood development and identify factors that affect child socio-emotional development, maternal mental wellness, and family resilience.
Work Package 1
Household Panel Study
Led By: Professor Wei-Jun Jean Yeung, Professor Lee Yung Seng, Professor Lim Sun Sun, Assistant Professor Mu Zheng, Assistant Professor Ooi Shu Qin, Delicia, Associate Professor Ryan Y. Hong, Dr Cai Shirong
This 3rd wave of the SG-LEADS panel study follows up with the same families from Wave 1 & 2, tracking the development of children in Singapore to understand factors that can promote Singaporean children’s early childhood development, and provide interventions that can help address these factors.
In addition to the various themes from previous waves, this wave includes new focuses like the impact of COVID-19, maternal and children’s mental health, cross-national & cross-ethnic families, the impact of major family changes, and important topics for school-aged children such as time spent on digital devices, sports, sleep, family-school interaction, peers, puberty changes, and developmental origins of perfectionism.
Work Package 2
Secondary Data Analysis – Impact of Daycare & Preschool
Led By: Professor Wei-Jun Jean Yeung
Data from SG-LEADS Waves 1, 2, and 3 (when available) will be used to address the specific research questions posed by ECDA focusing on the impact of childcare arrangement and preschool experience and over-tuition/schooling, identify children who tend to have poor outcomes.
Work Package 3
Intervention Program – Promote Early Social-Emotional Skills
Led By: Assistant Professor Cheung Hoi Shan and Assistant Professor Ding Xiaopan
This intervention examines the effectiveness of a two-pronged integrated intervention program that involves a parenting training programme to equip parents with the skills to help children cope with their emotions, and a social skills training tailored to preschool children aged 4-6 to improve their attention focusing and social and emotional understanding.
Wave 1 (2018-2019) & Wave 2 (2021)
BUILDING HUMAN CAPACITY IN SINGAPORE’S POPULATION
Funded by The Ministry of Education Social Science Research Thematic Grant (MOE2016 – SSRTG – 044)
Amount: S$8,479,995
Project duration: June 2017 to May 2022
Principal Investigator: Prof Wei-Jun Jean Yeung, Provost’s Chair Professor, Sociology Dept, CFPR Founding Director and ARI Research Leader of Changing Family in Asia Cluster, NUS
Co-PIs: Dr Ding Xiaopan (NUS Psychology), Dr Ryan Hong (NUS Psychology), A/P Shirlena Huang (NUS Geography), Prof Lim Sun Sun (SUTD), A/P Leher Singh (NUS Psychology), Prof Brenda Yeoh (NUS Geography)
Collaborator: Associate Professor Rongjun Yu (Department of Management, School of Business, Hong Kong Baptist University)
SG-LEADS Wave 1 & 2 were comprised of a multi-wave core panel study, and 3 sub-projects focused on child’s language, social skills and cross-cultural families.
Core Panel Survey
Core Panel Survey
Led By: Professor Wei-Jun Jean Yeung
Co-PIs: Dr. Ding Xiaopan, A/P Ryan Hong, Professor Lim Sun Sun
The core national survey is a 2-wave panel study of 5,000 children aged 0 to 6 and assesses children’s motor, social-emotional, language and cognitive skills, health, and factors that potentially shape the multiple domains of child development. The respondents are from a nationally representative probability sample of Singapore resident households that have at least one child under the age of 7, with an oversample of the disadvantaged population.
Wave 1 of the national survey was completed in 2018-2019, with 5,005 children in 3,476 households.
Wave 2 of the national survey was completed in 2021 during the Covid-19 pandemic, with 4,352 children in 3,016 households.
The study focuses on the cultural background, early childcare and preschool, time use, technology use, financial and non-monetary investment in children, mother, father and extended family’s roles, family stress, program participation, and community context.
Subprojects
(1) Early Childhood Language Skills Development
Led By: Associate Professor Leher Singh
Focus: A laboratory experiment of early childhood linguistic development with a special interest in the effects of different multilingual environments for later social, cognitive and language development of children. This study used a subset of the sample from the Core National Panel Survey.
(2) Improving Children’s Social Skills
Led By: Assistant Professor Rongjun Yu
Focus: An intervention project that trains children’s minds to build social-emotional skills such as cooperation, empathy, self-control, and identify neural correlates of social cognition and decision-making for children. This study used a subset of the sample from the Core National Panel Survey.
(3) Ethnographic Study on Children Growing Up in Cross-Cultural Families
Led By: Professor Brenda Yeoh and Associate Professor Huang Swee Lian, Shirlena
Focus: An ethnographic study focusing on the consequences of cross-cultural low-income family environments for family functioning and child development in terms of sociopsychological well-being, early childhood experience and health. This study used a subset of the sample from the Core National Panel Survey.
Singapore Longitudinal Early Development Study (SG-LEADS) 