Understanding the Early Years - Early Childhood Development in Prince Albert, Saskatchewan - April 2002

Study Highlights

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In Prince Albert, approximately 35% of families were considered low-income,compared to about 25% in Saskatchewan, and 22% in Canada overall. Some 34% of families are of Aboriginal origin, and about 28% of families were headed by a single parent. One of the study's surprises is that the spatial distribution of children's outcomes does not match socio-economic status patterns. Many children in low-income areas are faring quite well. It is also important to note that the results for Prince Albert are bi-modal, based on the urban and rural areas.

Using three tests, the NLSCY found that children in Prince Albert scored slightly above the national average on positive behavior, but below the national average on direct assessments of their vocabulary and cognitive development.

The Early Development Instrument found that on two of the five domains, social knowledge and competence and communication skills and general knowledge, children in Prince Albert scored above the average of all children evaluated in 1999-2000. They scored below on physical health and well-being, emotional health and maturity, and language and cognitive development compared to the average of all children evaluated in 1999-2000. Overall, children scored consistently higher in the rural areas compared to urban areas.

Based on the community indicator scores for the combined average of the first five UEY communities, use of resources was low for the average on the first five UEY communities, 3.2 on a 10.0 point scale. Similarly, Prince Albert scored 3.1 on a 10-point scale for use of resources.

Prince Albert had high scores on wider community indicators describing its levels of social support, social capital, and safety of its neighbourhoods, despite relatively low levels of socio-economic status. The children of Prince Albert were healthy and showed strong signs of positive development and readiness for learning.

Prince Albert can take pride in the success of its youngest children. However, there is room for improvement. The parents in this community had lower scores on parenting skills and parental engagement. Given this, and the relatively high prevalence of children with behavioural problems, the results suggest that many parents would appreciate and benefit from parenting courses and other support measures. Many parents in Prince Albert also reported low levels of engagement in learning activities at home, and strategies which help parents become more engaged are likely to help improve children's outcomes.

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 differences in behaviour scores. This latter number for parenting had the highest explanatory power among all communities in explaining behaviour scores.

The family and community indicator scores for Prince Albert were higher than the average for the first five UEY communities on 4 of the 10 measures used: family functioning, social support, social capital, and neighbourhood safety. Moreover, their scores were high on maternal mental health, 8.8 on a 10-point scale, the same as the combined average for the first five UEY communities (8.8 on a 10-point scale). The total score out of 100 for family and community indicators for Prince Albert was 66.7, slightly below the average for the five UEY communities, which is 66.9.

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