Understanding the Early Years - Early Childhood Development in Hampton/Sussex, New Brunswick - April 2003

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II. The outcomes for children of Hampton/Sussex

A. How the outcomes were measured

This section provides more information about the specific measures of children's outcomes. A child's cognitive skills, behaviour, and physical health and well-being outcomes were measured in two ways, using the Early Development Instrument (EDI) and the National Longitudinal Study of Children and Youth (NLSCY) Community Study.

Five domains of the EDI (teacher report)

1. Physical health and well-being: children's motor skills, energy levels, fatigue, and clumsiness.
2. Social competence: self-confidence, tolerance, and children's ability to get along with other children, to accept responsibility for their own actions, to work independently.
3. Emotional health and maturity: children's general emotional health and maturity. It also identifies minor problems with aggression, restlessness, distractibility, or inattentiveness, as well as excessive, regular sadness.
4. Language and cognitive development: mastery of the basics of reading and writing, interest in books, and numerical skills (e.g., recognising numbers and counting).
5. Communication skills and general knowledge: children's general knowledge, their ability to articulate clearly, and their ability to understand and communicate in English or French.

Cognitive skills (from the NLSCY - direct assessments of the child)

Vocabulary Skills (Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test, Revised - PPVT-R): assesses a child's receptive or hearing vocabulary. The children hear a word said aloud and are asked to point to one of four pictures that they believe corresponds to the word.

Developmental Level (Who Am I?): is based on copying and writing tasks, which are designed to test children's ability to conceptualize and to reconstruct a geometrical shape and to use symbolic representations, as illustrated by their understanding and use of conventional symbols such as numbers, letters, and words. Children are asked to copy five shapes (such as a circle or a diamond) and to write their names, numbers, letters, words, and a sentence. Because the tasks are not dependent on language, Who Am I? can be used to assess children whose knowledge of English or French is limited.

Number Knowledge Assessment: is designed to test the child's understanding of numbers. Children who do not have this understanding, or who are working in a language different from their mother tongue, often have difficulty mastering basic arithmetic and demonstrating number sense. The Number Knowledge Assessment evaluates children's understanding of quantity (more vs. less), their ability to count objects, their understanding of number sequence, and their ability to do simple arithmetic.

Behaviour outcomes (from NLSCY - parent report)

Measuring a child's behaviour is based on a scale administered to the person most knowledgeable about the child, which is usually the mother.⁵ The measurements comprise several questions, each with the same format. For example, the mother is asked how often her child cannot sit still, is restless, or is hyperactive. She answers with one of three possible responses — "never or not true"; "sometimes or somewhat true"; and "often or very true." The scale included the following elements:

Positive social behaviour: children who exhibit higher levels of positive social behaviour are more likely to try to help and comfort others. They may offer to help pick up objects that another child has dropped or offer to help a child who is having trouble with a difficult task. They might also invite their peers to join in a game.

Indirect aggression: this element identifies children who, when mad at someone, try to get others to dislike that person; who become friends with another for revenge; who say bad things behind the other's back; who say to others, "Let's not be with him/her"; or who tell secrets to a third person.

Hyperactivity: hyperactive children cannot sit still; are restless and are easily distracted; have trouble sticking to any activity; fidget; cannot concentrate, cannot pay attention for long; are impulsive; have difficulty waiting their turn in games or groups; or cannot settle to do anything for more than a few moments.

Emotional disorder/anxiety: this element identifies children who seem to be unhappy, sad, or depressed; are too fearful or anxious; are worried; cry a lot; tend to be rather solitary; appear miserable, unhappy, tearful, or distressed; are not as happy as other children; are nervous, high strung, or tense; or have trouble enjoying themselves.

Physical aggression and conduct disorder: these children get into many fights. When another child accidentally hurts them (by bumping into them, for example), they assume that the other child meant to do it, and then react with anger and fighting. Also included are children who kick, bite, or hit other children; who physically attack people; and who threaten people, are cruel, or bully others.

B. What we learned from teachers: results of the Early Development Instrument

The children of Hampton/Sussex scored very well overall on the five domains, compared with children in the EDI-16 sample (see Table 2.1).⁶ The largest difference was in the area of Communication Skills and General Knowledge at 0.5 points above the EDI-16 average. The scores for Language and Cognitive Development were 0.3 points below the EDI-16 average, as were the scores for Emotional Health and Maturity. These appear to be the greatest areas of concern. The average scores for Physical Health and Well-being and Social Competence did not differ significantly from the EDI-16 average.

Figure 2.1 displays box plots describing the distribution of EDI scores for Hampton/Sussex compared with the EDI-16 sample. The box plots show the median and percentiles for the distribution of EDI scores for each group (See Inset 3). The median is the mid-point at which 50% of the cases fall above and 50% of the cases fall below. Percentiles refer to the percentages of cases with values falling above and below the number. Ideally, a community would want to have a high median score, with relatively short blocks above and below the median. The median scores for the EDI domains for Hampton/Sussex are in some cases higher than and in some cases lower than those of the EDI-16 sample. In the areas of Physical Health and Well-Being, Emotional Health and Maturity, and Language and Cognitive Development, the median scores were slightly lower than the EDI-16 median. In the area of Social Competence, and Communication Skills and General Knowledge, the median score was quite a bit higher than the EDI-16 sample.

The range of scores is indicated by the length of the boxes.⁷ With one exception —Communication Skills and General Knowledge — the range of scores for children in Hampton/Sussex is greater than that of the EDI-16 sample. These results confirm those in Table 2.1, and suggest further that the high average score in Communication Skills and General Knowledge is attributable mainly to a small number of children with poor skills, rather than a large number of children with exceptional skills, in this domain. In the areas of Social Competence, and Language and Cognitive Development, however, the lower overall score for the children of Hampton/Sussex is most likely attributable to the higher numbers of children with low scores.

 

Table 2.1 — Mean scores on the Early Development Instrument for the Hampton/Sussex UEY community and the EDI-16

	Hampton/Sussex Community (N=294)		EDI-16 (N=28,250)
	Mean	SD	Mean	SD
Physical Health and Well-being	8.5	1.5	8.6	1.1
Social Competence	7.6	2.3	7.5	1.5
Emotional Health and Maturity	7.6	1.9	7.9	1.5
Language and Cognitive Development	7.8	2.2	8.1	1.9
Communication Skills and General Knowledge	7.7	2.1	7.2	2.1
Note: Figures in blue text differ significantly (p<0 .05) from the EDI-16 sample mean.

 

 

The EDI-16 was also used to establish a "low score" threshold for each EDI domain. The low-score threshold scores were set to the tenth percentile, which means that 10% of all children scored below this score for each domain. Thus, if a community had typical results, we would expect 10% of its children to score below the same threshold scores for each domain. In Hampton/Sussex, the percentage of children with very low scores on the EDI was higher than 10% (ranging from 12.2% to 18.4%) on all of the EDI domains except Communication Skills and General Knowledge. In this domain, significantly fewer children (6.5%) in Hampton/Sussex were considered by their teachers to have low scores. This analysis shows that although the average levels of development in most domains are comparable to national domains, Hampton/Sussex has a large number of children with very low scores. In the domains of Social Competence, Emotional Health and Maturity, and Language and Cognitive Development, the prevalence of low scores was at least one-and-one-half times that of the children in the EDI-16 sample.

The data collected as part of the Understanding the Early Years study included information about where each child resided. Therefore, an analysis was conducted that would give some indication of how children's scores on the EDI were distributed geographically. To achieve this, we determined the average score within each enumeration area, for each domain of the EDI. We then "smoothed" (Inset 4) the average scores for each enumeration area.

Figures 2.3 through 2.7 display the geographic distribution of the EDI scores for each of the domains. For each map, the yellow and orange areas represent scores that are just below (orange) or just above (yellow) the median score of the full EDI-16 sample.

Scores that are somewhat below the EDI-16 median are indicated in light red, and very low scores (which are comparable to the bottom 17% of the population) are shown in dark red. Similarly, relatively high scores are represented in light green, while very high scores (which are comparable to the top 17% of the population) are shown in dark green. Although the distributions vary somewhat by domain, on most domains, many of the EAs scored just above to just below the median, shown as yellow to orange areas. In general, the children in the eastern enumeration areas tended to receive higher scores than those in the western enumeration areas.

 

 

 

 

The map in Figure 2.3 shows that many EAs scored at or close to the EDI-16 median score (8.8) on Physical Health and Well-being. There are a few EAs in the western end of the community with lower than average scores, but no area received very low, high, or very high scores.

Figure 2.4 indicates that there is a pattern in the scores for Social Competence, from below EDI-16 median (7.9) in the west to above the median in the east.

Figure 2.5 shows a similar pattern of scores for Emotional Health and Maturity. Many EAs were close to the EDI-16 median (8.2); however, there are a few EAs with very low scores in the west, which are followed to the east by areas just below or just above the median.

Figure 2.6 shows that, with one exception, EAs in Hampton/Sussex received low or very low scores on Language and Cognitive Development. There were no EAs with average scores that were above the EDI-16 median.

Figure 2.7 indicates that most EAs scored just above or just below the EDI-16 median (7.5) on the Communication Skills and General Knowledge of the EDI. There is one EA that scored well below and one that scored well above the median.

Overall, the maps indicate that children in the areas in the west side of the study area have weaker skills than children on the east side of the city. There is a group of EAs on the western end of the study area that scored below average on all of the five EDI domains. However, what is more remarkable is that children in these communities are faring relatively well, given the low SES of many families.

C. What we learned from parents, guardians, and the children: NLSCY community study results

In this section, we discuss the results of the National Longitudinal Survey of Children and Youth Community Study, which measures children's cognitive skills, positive social behaviour, and behaviour problems.

Table 2.2 displays the means and standard deviations of scores on the Developmental Assessment (Who Am I?), on the Positive Behaviour Scale, and on the Receptive Language (PPVT-R) Test for Hampton/Sussex. Figure 2.8 displays their distributions.

Table 2.2 — Mean scores on the NLSCY standardized instruments for the children in Hampton/Sussex UEY community

	Mean	Standard Deviation
Developmental Assessment (Who Am I?) (N = 283)	100.0	14.9
Positive Behaviour Scale (N = 295)	100.8	12.6
Receptive Language (PPVT-R) (N = 292)	100.1	12.6
Note: Means scores did not differ significantly from the standardized mean of 100.

 

On all three tests, the children of Hampton/Sussex received scores that did not differ significantly from the 2001-02 UEY average of 100. The average score for Hampton/Sussex on the Developmental Assessment (Who Am I?) is 100.0, which is exactly the 2001-02 UEY average. On the Positive Behaviour Scale, the average score was 100.8, and on the Receptive Language Test, 100.1. Both of these average scores are very close to national norms. On the latter two measures, the standard deviation is close to 12.0, indicating that the spread of scores is actually smaller than those in the 2001-02 UEY sample or the NLSCY sample. The standard deviation on the Developmental Assessment (Who Am I?) was 14.9, indicating a range of scores comparable to the 2001-02 UEY sample.

Figure 2.9 shows the prevalence of children with low scores on the Developmental Assessment (Who Am I?), the Positive Behaviour Scale, and the Receptive Language Test. It also shows the percentage of children deemed to have a behaviour problem, based on four measures of behaviour (hyperactivity, emotional disturbance/anxiety, aggression/conduct disorder, and indirect aggression).

For each measure, a score at the 10th percentile of the 2001-02 UEY sample (for the Developmental Assessment and the Positive Behaviour Scale) or the nationally representative NLSCY sample (for the PPVT-R) was used as the threshold to define a "low score". Similarly, children with scores above the 90^th percentile for the NLSCY sample on the behavioural measures were considered to have a behaviour problem. For each measure the prevalence of children in Hampton/Sussex with low scores on the three developmental assessments, and the prevalence of behaviour problems, was calculated. This allows one to compare whether the prevalence of children in Hampton/Sussex with significant problems in these areas is above or below the national norm of 10%.

The results indicate that the prevalence of children in Hampton/Sussex with behaviour problems (emotional disturbance/anxiety, aggression/conduct disorder, indirect aggression) was significantly below the national norm fixed at 10%. The percentage of hyperactive children was slightly above the national norm, but the difference was not statistically significant. The prevalence of low-scoring children on the Developmental Assessment (Who Am I?) was below 10%, but the difference was not statistically significant. The prevalence of children with low scores on the Positive Behaviour scale and the PPVT-R were significantly below 10% (6.1% and 3.8%, respectively). Overall, this analysis suggests that very few children in Hampton/Sussex have cognitive or behaviour problems, compared with national norms.

The study also included a direct measure of a child's understanding of the system of whole numbers. Scores were classified according to developmental levels:

• Have not reached level 1;
• Reached level 1 (usually attained by 4-year-olds);
• Reached level 2 (usually attained by 6-year-olds);
• Reached level 3 (usually attained by 8-year-olds).

For all of the children who did the assessment across the seven UEY 2001-02 sites, only 1.1% had failed to reach level 1. The majority of children (42.8%) were at level 1, or had made the transition to level 2 (54.2%). Only 1.9% of the UEY children had reached level 3. These results are as expected given that the UEY children were 5 and 6 years old.

In Hampton/Sussex, 98.6% of the children sampled had either reached level 1 or had made the transition to level 2. This is above the 2001-02 UEY score of 97.0%. None of the children sampled in Hampton/Sussex had failed to reach level 1, and 1.4% had reached level 3.

Overall, the analyses in this section indicate that Hampton/Sussex has few weaknesses in early childhood outcomes. Its strengths lie in the areas of children's communication skills and general knowledge. On a measure of these skills teachers rated children above national norms. In the areas of language and cognitive development, the children of Hampton/Sussex were rated slightly below national norms, and the prevalence of children with low scores in these areas is of potential concern. This measure pertains to children's mastery of the basics of reading and writing, interest in books, and numerical skills. The majority of the children with very low scores in this domain were in the west side of the Hampton/Sussex NB UEY site. An encouraging result, however, is that the scores of the children sampled in this study virtually matched the national norms on the Receptive Language Test, Positive Behaviour Test, and Developmental Assessment. In addition, the children of Hampton/Sussex exhibited low rates of behavioural disorders. The strong performance of the children of Hampton/Sussex is noteworthy, in light of the relatively low SES observed in the previous section. Some of these results are likely attributable to family backgrounds and to various family and community factors, which are explored in the next two sections.

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⁵ Statistics Canada trained personnel conducted the parent interviews by telephone only in English or French for the NLSCY. Parents without telephones or speaking other languages were not interviewed.

⁶ The EDI sample size, N=299, included valid data only. To be included in the EDI sample size for Hampton/Sussex children needed scores on at least 3 out of the 5 EDI domains. This explains why the EDI sample size (N=299) is different from the NLSCY sample size (N=294) for Hampton/Sussex.

⁷ The longer the boxes, the greater range of variability in the EDI domain scores. For example, the physical health and well-being domain has short boxes which indicates that scores were very similar to one another. In contrast, the language and cognitive development domain has long boxes which indicates that scores varied considerably, ranging from very low to very high scores.

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