Understanding the Early Years - Early Childhood Development in the Montreal study area (Quebec) - November 2003

Approximately 40% of families in the Montreal study area have low incomes, 34.5% are single-parent families, and 23.1% of mothers have not finished high school. Low socio-economic status families tend to settle in the northwest and in the east along the St. Lawrence River. Many low-income children are faring quite well, while a good number of children in relatively affluent neighbourhoods had low scores on several of the outcomes.

Results based on the Early Development Instrument (EDI), a measure derived from reports by children's kindergarten teachers, indicated that children in the study area fared well in physical health and well-being, social competence, and communication skills and general knowledge. The Montreal area scored low in language and cognitive development and emotional maturity.

Findings based on direct assessments of children's cognitive development and vocabulary indicated that they scored higher than the national norm for cognitive development and below the national norm for vocabulary. It should be pointed out that approximately 18% of the children assessed came from families who spoke neither French nor English. The children themselves often have a limited knowledge of these languages, in which the assessments were conducted.

The prevalence of children with behavioural problems was close to the national norm, except for children with hyperactivity-their prevalence was more than one and a half times the national norm.

The relationship of family background, family processes, and community factors from the NLSCY in relation to the EDI domain scores were studied for all seven 2001-02 UEY communities together.

• The parents' level of education, whether the parents were working outside the home, social support, and use of community resources were the most important variables related to the cognitive domain.
• Positive parenting¹ was by far the most important factor explaining the outcomes in the behavioural domain, followed by the mother's mental health, and community social capital.
• Whether the child was living in a two parent or single parent family and whether the father was working outside the home were the most important variables influencing physical health and well-being.

While family background was particularly important in the cognitive domain, the role of positive parenting was an especially important predictor of behaviour problems.

According to the NLSCY data, use of resources is not very high in the Montreal study area, as shown by a score of 2.8 out of 10. In all seven 2001-02 study area, the same score was only 3.4.

Use of resources was explored further by considering the availability of educational, cultural and recreational resources for the seven UEY communities. In the Montreal study area, the availability of educational resources was 88.1%, cultural resources was 82.6% and recreational resources was 69.8%, compared with 69.2%, 50.0% and 53.7% for the combined NLSCY data of the seven UEY communities.

A relatively high percentage of parents in this area look after their children themselves, rather than using a daycare or similar service. More precisely, 10.9% of children are cared for by a person other than their parents, which is considerably lower than the Canadian rate of 43.4%.

For the study area, the total score out of 100 for family and community indicators was 61.8, 5.4 points below the average of 67.2 for the seven 2001-02 study areas. Scores were lower than average for 8 out of 10 UEY indicators, the biggest differences were for parental engagement in their children's learning activities and residential stability. As for family functioning, the score was below the UEY average, but the difference was not statistically significant. The score for positive parenting was the same for all the study areas.

Despite good overall development, children in the Montreal study area would benefit from efforts to improve language and cognitive development, emotional maturity and vocabulary, and address the prevalence of hyperactivity. Efforts might be directed towards improving the neighbourhoods where they live (especially in regards to social support, residential stability, use of resources, safety and social capital), parental engagement in their children's learning activities and measures to help improve mothers' health.

• ¹This ''style'' of parenting, called ''authoritative'' parenting, is characterized by parents monitoring their children's behaviour, being responsive to their needs, and encouraging independence with a democratic approach. It stands in contrast to ''authoritarian'' parenting, characterized by parents being highly controlling and somewhat harsh in their approach to discipline, and ''permissive'' parenting, characterized by parents being overly-indulgent and setting few limits for behaviour.