Early Childhood Development
Engaging young children in activities that stimulate the mind and body is extremely important for healthy growth and future well-being. Children who are not actively stimulated do not have nearly the same brain development because they undergo a greater amount of neural pruning.
Early Developmental Instrument (EDI)
What does this measure?
The Early Development Instrument (EDI) was designed to measure children’s children’s ability to meet age-appropriate developmental expectations at school entry. The EDI is filled out by Kindergarten teachers across Ontario. The results provide a snapshot of the development of children at the population level and can help identify how communities and policy makers can mobilize to have a positive impact on children’s development. Children are assessed on 5 different five different areas of their early development: physical health and well-being, language and cognitive development, communication skills and general knowledge, emotional maturity, and social competence. “Vulnerable” describes the children who score below the 10th percentile cut-off of the Ontario baseline population. Higher vulnerability percentages indicate that a greater proportion of children are struggling.
Why is this important?
As many studies have shown, early child development is the first and most critical phase of human growth. Research linking EDI scores to later educational data demonstrate that, on average, vulnerability at entry to kindergarten predicts ongoing vulnerability in the school system such as low standardized test scores in Grade 3 and 4. Numerous studies have shown that early vulnerability predicts a child’s lifelong health, learning, and behaviour.
How are Hastings and Prince Edward Counties doing?
Overall, young children in Hastings and Prince Edward counties (HPEC) are consistently more vulnerable than in Ontario as a whole. The developmental area with the greatest percentage of vulnerable children has consistently been Physical Health and Well-Being. In the more resent cycles, the largest gap when comparing HPEC to Ontario has been in Emotional Maturity. For more information, see EDI in Ontario 2004-2018, 5 Cycles of EDI in Ontario: Hastings, and Summary Report: Hastings School Year 2017/2018.