BOUT THE AUSTRALIAN EARLY DEVELOPMENT INDEX:
Building Better Communities for Children project
Who is running the Australian Early Development Index Program?
The Australian Early Development Index (AEDI) program is conducted by the Centre for Community Child Health, a key research centre of the Murdoch Childrens research Institute in Melbourne in partnership with The Kids for Child Health Research in Perth.
What does the AEDI measure?
The AEDI is based on the Canadian Early Development Instrument (EDI) and is a population measure of young children's development from a teacher-completed checklist and measures five developmental domains:
- Physical health and wellbeing
- Social competence
- Emotional maturity
- Language and cognitive skills
- Communication skills and general knowledge
The AEDI provides data on populations of children and is interpreted only at the level of suburb or postcode of the child's residence.
How many communities have completed the AEDI?
From 2004 to 2006 a total of 414 local communities and 54 geographic areas across all Australian States and Territories with the exception of the Northern Territory have been involved in the AEDI. 31,929 children and 1,868 teachers from 870 schools have completed the AEDI.
Why is the AEDI important for communities?
The purpose of the AEDI is to measure the health and development of populations of children to help how well they are doing in supporting young children and their families. Previously there has been no way to monitor early child development at a community level or to understand how local circumstances might be changed to improve children's life chances.
By using the AEDI to map children's development it is possible to begin to identify and understand the influence of socio-economic and community factors on children's development. The AEDI can also be used to monitor changes over time.
How was the AEDI Checklist developed?
The EDI checklist was originally developed in Canada where it has undergone extensive pilot testing and has been compared with direct assessment results and with parent reports. It has also been repeated on the same group of children within a short space of time.
It has demonstrated reliability in all these tests. In the process of the development, the EDI checklist has also been refi ned using detailed input from teachers. In Australia, the EDI checklist was first successfully used in the Northern Metropolitan area of Perth in 2003, with around 4,300 children.
A national Technical Advisory Group consisting of leading experts, researchers and government policy makers was formed to advise on the development of the AEDI Checklist. The AEDI checklist has been further adapted and validated for Australia.
Why use a population measure?
A population measure is used to report on all individuals within a defined population. In the case of the AEDI, the defined population is all children in the first year of fulltime schooling within a community or a geographic area.
A population measure places the focus on the population rather than the individual. Individual children are part of societies, communities and populations. Focusing only at the individual level means that we may lose sight of the other important factors that impact on a child's health and development, such as community factors and the broader social environment.
How does the AEDI help children, families and communities?
Supporting children in the years before school greatly increases their chances of a successful transition to school and better learning outcomes whilst at school. The AEDI provides community members and families with the opportunity to understand the health and development of local children, and facilitates increased collaboration between schools, early childhood services, and local agencies supporting children and families.
The AEDI data and maps can help identify:
- Where the children who are developmentally vulnerable live.
- Variations in child development within different parts of the community.
- Where the strengths and vulnerabilities lie across the domains of child development.
- The influence of socio-economic and community factors on child development.
- How well the community is supporting young children and their families.
- Where there have been successful early childhood programs.
- Where change is still needed.
How does the AEDI influence planning and policy?
The AEDI can influence planning and policy by:
- Providing an evidence base for the development of community initiatives that support healthy child development.
- Supporting more effective allocation of existing resources.
- Encouraging schools, early childhood services, and local agencies to explore new ways of working together to ensure children get the best possible start.
- Providing schools with the opportunity to reflect on the development of children in the community as they enter school and to consider and plan for optimal school transition.
- Providing teachers with the opportunity to reflect on all aspects of children's development in the first year of school.
- Supporting efforts to reorient community services and systems towards children.
- Increasing awareness of the crucial importance of the early years for children.
- Facilitating the development and evaluation of effective community-based responses.
Examples of how the AEDI has been used
It has been shown in Canada where the EDI has been used for many years, and in the National Evaluation of the AEDI conducted by the Centre for Community Child Health between 2004 and 2006 that there are many significant benefits for the community. These include:
- Providing a common language for the community when discussing and planning for optimal early childhood development.
- Strengthening the relationships among services.
- The AEDI mapping can promote other community mapping exercises, for example locations of local programs, resources and assets.
- Providing an evidence base for the development of community initiatives in a range of fields such as parent support, family and pre-school literacy, and nutrition.
- Supporting funding applications.
- Supporting organisational change to address children's outcomes.