Understanding the Early Years - Early Childhood Development in Southwestern Newfoundland - June 2002

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Approximately 54% of families in Southwestern Newfoundland were considered low-income, compared to about 43% in Newfoundland, and 23% in Canada overall. Unemployment levels were also high compared with the Canadian average. Over 60% of mothers, and almost 40% of fathers, did not work outside the home. About 28% of households were headed by a single parent.

Using three tests, the National Longitudinal Survey of Children and Youth found that children in Southwestern Newfoundland scored above the national average on direct assessments of their vocabulary, behaviour, and cognitive development. The Early Development Instrument found that the results for the children in Southwestern Newfoundland exceeded the average of all children evaluated in 1999-2000 on four out of the five domains of school readiness.

Overall, the children of Southwestern Newfoundland were healthy and showed strong signs of positive development and readiness for learning. Despite low socio-economic status, parents in Southwestern Newfoundland had very strong parenting skills and were regularly engaged with their children in learning activities, factors which undoubtedly contribute to the community's success in achieving high levels on children's outcomes.

Few residents move within or out of the Southwestern Newfoundland community, which can help its citizens take advantage of strong community and social resources that can engage parents and other caregivers in children's learning activities. The neighbourhoods within the Southwestern Newfoundland community are also considered safe for the children. These factors also contribute to the high outcomes of the community's children.

The role of positive parenting is particularly important. It explained 37% of the differences in physical health and well-being scores, and 131% of the difference in behaviour scores. This latter number for parenting had the highest explanatory power among all communities in explaining behaviour scores.

Based on the community indicator scores for the combined average of the first five UEY communities, use of resources was lower for Southwestern Newfoundland than the combined data of the first five UEY communities, 2.3 and 3.2 on a 10.0 point scale, respectively.

This community can take pride in the success of its young children. However, there is room for improvement. Over 10% of children had low scores on Social Knowledge and Competence and 9.5% had low scores on the nationally standarized Receptive Language Test. Also, the use of educational, cultural, and recreational resources was low in the community. While many children used recreational facilities and educational services, their participation rates were somewhat lower compared to the province and Canada. Participation in activities and use of child-oriented resources is important to a child's social, behavioural and physical development. This emphasizes the value of addressing existing barriers to resource use such as time, cost, and looking at the distribution of certain resources. Since children and their families were not using existing resources to their full potential, their importance for development could be promoted and their presence in the community advertised.

Increasing levels of social support and social capital could contribute to improving children's outcomes. For example, over one-quarter of children in this community live in single-parent families. The timely help of neighbours or family could improve their parenting practices and/or access to community resources.

For Southwestern Newfoundland, the total score out of 100 for family and community indicators was 69.9, which is 3.0 points above the average of 66.9 for the first five UEY communities.

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