Latest Update: 13 July 2023

This indicator measures the percentage of children with a concern at their 27-30 month review (as a % of children reviewed). Find out more about this indicator.

In 2021-22, 17.9% of children were recorded as having a developmental concern at their 27-30 month review. This is a higher proportion than in 2020-21 (14.9%). The proportion of children with a developmental concern has increased since the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic, after a period of decreasing developmental concerns between 2013-14 (19.2%) and 2019-20 (14.3%).

Please note that this indicator was changed in 2021 to measure the proportion of children with a concern of all children reviewed as opposed to all children becoming eligible. Also, some children may not have been assessed across all developmental domains. NPF have changed the way this indicator is reported in order to help address data quality issues and align with the way Public Health Scotland report the figures.

• In 2021-22, the local authority with the highest proportion of children with a developmental concern was West Dunbartonshire (26.1%), while the local authority with the lowest proportion of children with a developmental concern was Aberdeenshire (8.6%).

• In 2021-22, the health board with the highest proportion of children with a developmental concern was NHS Greater Glasgow & Clyde (23.0%), while the health board with the lowest proportion of children with a developmental concern was NHS Orkney (11.1%).

• Currently, this NPF indicator only tracks outcomes at the 27-30 month child health review. The annual Early Child Development publication from which these statistics are derived also reports on outcomes at 13-15 month and 4-5 year child health reviews. In 2021-22, 11.9% of children had a concern recorded at 13-15 months and 15.0% had a concern recorded at 4-5 years.

• In 2021-22 a higher proportion of children of Black, Caribbean, or African ethnicity (26.5%) and Asian ethnicity (21.8%) had a developmental concern recorded than the national average (17.9%).

• In 2021-22, children living in the most deprived areas of Scotland (25.7%) were more than twice as likely to have a developmental concern recorded than children living in the least deprived areas (11.3%).

• In 2021-22, children living in households in which English was not the main language spoken in the household (19.1%) were more likely to have a developmental concern recorded than children for whom English was the main language spoken in the household (17.7%).

• The proportion of children with a developmental concern is also available broken down by whether or not the child is bi/ multilingual. In 2021-22, children who were bi/ multilingual (18.2%) were slightly more likely than children who were not bi/ multilingual (17.9%) to have a developmental concern recorded.

• In 2021-22, boys (22.9%) were almost twice as likely as girls (12.5%) to have a developmental concern recorded.

• In 2021-22, looked after children (37.6%) were more than twice as likely as non-looked after children (17.8%) to have a developmental concern recorded.

Breakdowns for this indicator are available by language spoken, ethnicity, gender, looked after children status and Scottish Index of Multiple Deprivation. These breakdowns can be viewed on the Equality Evidence Finder.