Reply to Li, D'Angiulli and Kendall: The Early Development Index and children from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds

Janus, Magdalena; Hertzman, Clyde; Guhn, Martin; Brinkman, Sally; Goldfeld, Sharon

doi:10.1080/09575140802689125

Cited by 9 publications

(3 citation statements)

References 18 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…Results reported elsewhere have shown that children who speak another language but are additionally proficient in English show the lowest levels of developmental vulnerabilities across each of the five domains; however, those that are not proficient in English (independent of ESL status) show poorer results on the AEDI. 18 58 59 …”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Jurisdictional, socioeconomic and gender inequalities in child health and development: analysis of a national census of 5-year-olds in Australia

et al. 2012

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

ObjectivesEarly child development may have important consequences for inequalities in health and well-being. This paper explores population level patterns of child development across Australian jurisdictions, considering socioeconomic and demographic characteristics.DesignCensus of child development across Australia.Setting and participantsTeachers complete a developmental checklist, the Australian Early Development Index (AEDI), for all children in their first year of full-time schooling. Between May and July 2009, the AEDI was collected by 14 628 teachers in primary schools (government and non-government) across Australia, providing information on 261 147 children (approximately 97.5% of the estimated 5-year-old population).Outcome measuresLevel of developmental vulnerability in Australian children for five developmental domains: physical well-being, social competence, emotional maturity, language and cognitive skills and communication skills and general knowledge.ResultsThe results show demographic and socioeconomic inequalities in child development as well as within and between jurisdiction inequalities. The magnitude of the overall level of inequality in child development and the impact of covariates varies considerably both between and within jurisdiction by sex. For example, the difference in overall developmental vulnerability between the best-performing and worst-performing jurisdiction is 12.5% for males and 7.1% for females. Levels of absolute social inequality within jurisdictions range from 8.2% for females to 12.7% for males.ConclusionsThe different mix of universal and targeted services provided within jurisdictions from pregnancy to age 5 may contribute to inequality across the country. These results illustrate the potential utility of a developmental census to shed light on the impact of differences in universal and targeted services to support child development by school entry.

show abstract

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Jurisdictional, socioeconomic and gender inequalities in child health and development: analysis of a national census of 5-year-olds in Australia

et al. 2012

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Hence, the AEDI appears to provide a robust measure of the skills needed for effective functioning within the mostly English-language setting of Australian schools for both bilingual children and those from English-speaking backgrounds. Nonetheless, it should be noted that the AEDI does not (nor intends to) measure skills demonstrated in languages other than English outside of the school context (Janus, Hertzman, Guhn, Brinkman, & Goldfeld, 2009).…”

Section: Background To the Current Studymentioning

confidence: 99%

Early development of emerging and English-proficient bilingual children at school entry in an Australian population cohort

Goldfeld

O’Connor

Mithen

et al. 2013

International Journal of Behavioral Development

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Children who enter school with limited proficiency in the language of instruction face a range of challenges in negotiating this new context, yet limited data have been available to describe the early developmental outcomes of this subpopulation in the Australian context. The Australian Early Development Index (AEDI) is a teacher-rated checklist that measures five important domains of child development: physical health and wellbeing, social competence, emotional maturity, language and cognitive skills, and communication skills and general knowledge. In 2009, the AEDI was completed for 97.5% of Australian children in their first year of schooling (N ¼ 261,147; M ¼ 5 years, 7 months of age), providing a unique opportunity to explore the cross-sectional associations between language background, proficiency in English, and early developmental outcomes at the population-level. Logistic regression analyses revealed that, compared to their peers from English-speaking backgrounds, bilingual children who were not yet proficient in English had substantially higher odds of being in the ''vulnerable'' range (bottom 10th percentile) on the AEDI domains (OR ¼ 2.88, p < .001, to OR ¼ 7.49, p < .001), whereas Englishproficient bilingual children had equal or slightly lower odds (OR ¼ .84, p < .001, to OR ¼ .97, ns). Future research with longitudinal data is now needed to establish causal pathways and explore long term outcomes.

show abstract

“…The EDI assesses physical, cognitive, emotional and social aspects of children 4–6 years. Reliability testing has been conducted by the designers of the EDI [ 38 - 40 ]. Both test-retest reliability (using the Pearson correlation coefficient) and intra-rater or within-teacher reliability (using the intra-class correlation coefficient) tests have been conducted.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

A cross-sectional pilot study of the Scottish early development instrument: a tool for addressing inequality

et al. 2013

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

BackgroundEarly childhood is recognised as a key developmental phase with implications for social, academic, health and wellbeing outcomes in later childhood and indeed throughout the adult lifespan. Community level data on inequalities in early child development are therefore required to establish the impact of government early years’ policies and programmes on children’s strengths and vulnerabilities at local and national level. This would allow local leaders to target tailored interventions according to community needs to improve children’s readiness for the transition to school. The challenge is collecting valid data on sufficient samples of children entering school to derive robust inferences about each local birth cohort’s developmental status. This information needs to be presented in a way that allows community stakeholders to understand the results, expediting the improvement of preschool programming to improve future cohorts’ development in the early years. The aim of the study was to carry out a pilot to test the feasibility and ease of use in Scotland of the 104-item teacher-administered Early Development Instrument, an internationally validated measure of children’s global development at school entry developed in Canada.MethodsPhase 1 was piloted in an education district with 14 Primary 1 teachers assessing a cohort of 154 children, following which the instrument was adapted for the Scottish context (Scottish Early Development Instrument: SEDI). Phase 2 was then carried out using the SEDI. Data were analysed from a larger sample of 1090 participants, comprising all Primary 1 children within this school district, evaluated by 68 teachers.ResultsThe SEDI displayed adequate psychometric and discriminatory properties and is appropriate for use across Scotland without any further modifications. Children in the lowest socioeconomic status quintiles were 2–3 times more likely than children in the most affluent quintile to score low in at least one developmental domain. Even in the most affluent quintile though, 17% of children were ‘developmentally vulnerable’, suggesting that those in need cannot be identified by socioeconomic status alone.ConclusionsThe SEDI offers a feasible means of providing communities with a holistic overview of school readiness for targeting early years’ interventions.

show abstract

Reply to Li, D'Angiulli and Kendall: The Early Development Index and children from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds

Cited by 9 publications

References 18 publications

Jurisdictional, socioeconomic and gender inequalities in child health and development: analysis of a national census of 5-year-olds in Australia

Jurisdictional, socioeconomic and gender inequalities in child health and development: analysis of a national census of 5-year-olds in Australia

Early development of emerging and English-proficient bilingual children at school entry in an Australian population cohort

A cross-sectional pilot study of the Scottish early development instrument: a tool for addressing inequality

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About