Longitudinal Study of Australian Children

Identifying and definitional attributes

The Longitudinal Study of Australian Children (LSAC) explores family and social issues while addressing a range of research questions about children’s development and wellbeing. Information is collected on children’s physical and mental health, education and social, cognitive and emotional development. The data is sourced from parents, child carers, pre-school and school teachers and the children themselves.

LSAC is undertaken in partnership between the Department of Social Services (DSS), the Australian Institute of Family Studies (AIFS) and the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS).

Development for the study commenced in March 2002 with a testing phase involving over 500 families that continued through 2003. Recruitment for the main study took place between March and November 2004, and over 10,000 children and their families agreed to participate. LSAC employs a cross-sequential design that follows two cohorts of children, initially aged 0-1 years and 4-5 year olds in 2004.

From 2004, participating families have been interviewed every two years, and between-wave mail-out questionnaires were sent to families in 2005 (Wave 1.5), 2007 (Wave 2.5) and 2009 (Wave 3.5). Additional between-wave questionnaires (Waves 4.5 and 5.5) were undertaken via online web forms from 2009 for the purposes of updating the contact details of study participants.