IAN Bell writes about the Milburn report suggesting ingeniously that too few cuddles have an effect on a child's life chances ("It is not difficult:

Poverty does no-one any good at all", The Herald, October 22).

Cuddles, though vital for emotional growth, are not the only kind of parental interaction important for a child's future and the report is aware of this. Public school kids may indeed be deprived of cuddles but they invariably receive educational and aspirational encouragement in spades from parents .

The children our society must prioritise are not just those who live in poor financial circumstances but those who before the age of five experience multiple risk factors for poor wellbeing; for example, also have a low level of positive inter­action with their carers, live with an adult who is mentally ill or substance-dependent, receive little in the way of stimulation of language or get no encouragement to learn and aspire. The well-established negative effects of these kinds of deprivation on future wellbeing increase with each additional risk.

As these factors come into play much before school age it follows that identification of our most educationally vulnerable children must take place pre-school to allow protective interventions to be most effective.

Health visitors are the persons best placed to achieve this as they have access to the youngest children; however as a society we are wary of the excessive interference of the state in the lives of families except in cases of neglect so we will have to accept that limitations on closing the achievement gap will be set by the degree to which the carers of multiply-deprived children can be supported not only materially but in stimulating early learning , becoming involved in their children's education and thinking positively about their children's futures.

It follows that reducing financial poverty is not the complete answer. I grew up in a poor family in a tenement with an outside toilet but my outcome was good because I was buffered by a caring family which valued learning and encouraged aspiration. While removing the stress of financial poverty might give many parents more emotional energy to engage more actively with their children there is also a need for the Government to financially support and extend current effective pre-school initiatives such as Sure Start and Parents Early Education Partnership, which work alongside less-interactive parents, role modelling styles of care which enhance language and learning.

Facilitating all parents in develop­ing a better understanding of children's social, emotional and learning needs really is the best way to promote equality of opportunity, close the achievement gap between differing social groups and thus have a lasting positive effect on our society.

Margaret McGregor,

34 Woodend Place, Aberdeen.

IAN Bell asks the question: "Why should the children of the poor need to pin their hopes and dreams on things the wealthy take for granted?" I heard it remarked recently that the most important journey most of us make is from the labour ward in maternity hospital to our home. People are faced continually with choices as they go through life but, as children, they are unable to choose their parents and where their parents have decided to set up house. Daniel Keys Moran once observed: 'The universe is not fair and it is never going to be fair." The human condition dictates that some children are going to be endowed with greater advantages than others.

It is, of course, the responsibility of government,within its limitations, to endeavour to equalise opportunity for all and to treat people in need as fairly as possible. The Coalition Government is signally failing in many respects to secure those objectives with, for example, the introduction of university fees elsewhere in the UK and its lack of proper discrimination with regard to the reduction of state benefits/

Lack of means can clearly impose great stress and strain on family life and, as a result, on children. However, the adverse effects on the children of separated parents, now so common in the age within which we live, and the consequent dysfunctionality and lack of familial security arising, should not be overlooked.

Ian W Thomson,

38 Kirkintilloch Road,

Lenzie.