Understanding the Early Years Early Childhood Development in Niagara Falls, Ontario - June 2003

II. The outcomes for children of Niagara Falls

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 community study - 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 Niagara Falls scored well overall on the five domains, compared with children in the EDI-16 sample (see Table 2.1),⁶ with the largest differences being for Social Competence and Communication Skills and General Knowledge, both 0.7 points above the EDI-16 average. The scores for Emotional Health and Maturity were 0.2 points below the EDI-16 average, which appears to be the greatest area of concern. The average scores for Physical Health and Well-being and Language and Cognitive Development did not differ significantly from the EDI-16 average.

Figure 2.1 displays box plots describing the distribution of EDI scores for Niagara Falls 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. Figure 2.1 shows the median scores for the EDI domains in Niagara Falls, compared to those of the EDI-16 sample. Scores were comparable for Physical Health and Well-Being and Language and Cognitive Development; higher for Social Competence and Communication Skills and General Knowledge; and slightly lower for Emotional Health and Maturity. The range of scores is indicated by the length of the boxes.⁷ The inter-quartile range of the scores for children in Niagara Falls for all tests were similar to those of the EDI-16 sample. For Social Competence there was slightly greater variability of scores among children in Niagara falls. In all cases, the ranges for the children of Niagara Falls extend below those of the EDI-16 sample, indicating that there were more children with very low scores in this community than in the EDI-16 sample.

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 Niagara Falls, the percentage of children with very low scores on the EDI was close to 10% (ranging from 4.6% to 12.0%) on all tests except Communication Skills and General Knowledge. In this domain, only 4.6% of the children were considered by their teachers to have low scores. These analyses also support those presented in Table 2.1 and Figure 2.1, which suggest that there was a relatively small number of children in Niagara Falls with relatively low scores in Communication Skills and General Knowledge.

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'' 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 by domain, there are two areas with consistently low scores, shown in orange to dark red: the southern third of the community, and a pocket in the north-central section. There are no areas with uniformly high scores across the five domains.

The map in Figure 2.3 shows that many EAs scored close to the EDI-16 median score (8.8) on Physical Health and Well-being. A number of EAs in the central and northern areas had low scores, and there were two small clusters of high scores.

Figure 2.4 shows that scores in Social Competence ranged from well above to well below the EDI-16 median, and that the range of scores was also distributed across the community. High scores did not occur in high SES EAs but low scores were in middle class areas.

Figure 2.5 shows scores for Emotional Health and Maturity. Many EAs were below the EDI-16 median (8.2). There was a concentration of low-scoring EAs in two areas, and only one EA with an average score well above the median.

Figure 2.6 shows that many EAs scored at or close to the EDI-16 median score (8.8) on Language and Cognitive Development, including several EAs with high socio-economic status. However, there were two areas where there was a concentration of low scores: one large contiguous block in the south/southwest area, and one enclave in the central northern section. There were no high scores in this domain in Niagara Falls.

Figure 2.7 indicates that most EAs scored just above or just below the EDI median (7.5) on the Communication Skills and General Knowledge test. However, there were a few pockets attaining relatively high scores for this domain.

Overall, the maps show no consistent pattern of relationship between SES and the five EDI domains in Niagara Falls. The spatial distribution of high scores is erratic, while there is a cluster of low scores across all five domains in the central and southernmost enumeration areas. Thus, the maps indicate that socio-economic background is not a definitive predictor of EDI outcomes in Niagara Falls, and that other factors that influence children's development should be considered. These outcomes may be more fully explained when additional family and community factors are taken into consideration.

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 Niagara Falls. Figure 2.8 displays their distributions.

The average score for Niagara Falls on the Receptive Language Test is 97.5, which is significantly below the 2001-02 UEY average of 100. On the other two measures, however, the average scores are 98.8 (Developmental Assessment — Who Am I?) and 100.4 (Positive Behaviour Scale), which are not significantly different from 100. On two of the three measures the standard deviation is close to 15.0, indicating that the spread of scores is also similar to those in the 2001-02 UEY sample or the NLSCY sample. On the Developmental Assessment — Who Am I?, however, the standard deviation is 16.3, indicating a wider spread of scores than those in the 2001-02 UEY or the NLSCY samples.

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 90th percentile for the NLSCY sample on the behavioural measures were considered to have a behaviour problem. For each measure the prevalence of children in Niagara Falls 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 Niagara Falls with significant problems in these areas is above or below the national norm of 10%.

The results indicate that the prevalence of hyperactive children in Niagara Falls was significantly above the national threshold fixed at 10%. The prevalence of low-scoring children on the measure of indirect aggression was, at 7.0%, significantly lower than the fixed national threshold. On the other measures, the prevalence did not differ significantly from 10%, and ranged from 7.4% to 11.1%.

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 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 Niagara Falls, 96.5% of the children sampled had either reached level 1 or had made the transition to level 2. This is similar to the 2001-02 UEY prevalence of 97.0%. Only 0.7% of children in Niagara Falls had failed to reach level 1.

Overall, the analyses in this section indicate that Niagara Falls has some marked strengths and weaknesses in early childhood outcomes. Its strengths lie in the areas of children's social competence, general knowledge and communication skills. On measures of these skills teachers rated children above national norms. Its weaknesses are in the areas of emotional health and maturity, and hyperactivity. Teachers rated children below norms on the measure of emotional health and maturity, which assesses their overall level of emotional health and maturity and identifies minor problems with aggression, restlessness, distractibility, or in-attentiveness, as well as excessive, regular sadness. The majority of the children with very low scores in this domain were in north central, central, and southern areas of the city. An encouraging result, however, is that the children sampled in this study did not differ significantly from national norms on the Positive Behaviour Scale. This measure is derived from parents' judgments, and can be compared with scores of other children in the country. In addition, parents' ratings of children's behaviour indicated that, with the exception of hyperactivity, the children of Niagara Falls exhibited fewer behaviour problems compared with national norms. It should be noted that scores for hyperactivity are based on parents' responses and not on a professional assessment. Some of these results are likely attributable to family backgrounds and to various family and community factors. This is explored in the next two sections.

• ⁵Statistics 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.
• ⁶The EDI sample size, N=335, included valid data only. To be included in the EDI sample size for Niagara Falls children needed scores on at least 3 out of the 5 EDI domains. This explains why the EDI sample size (N=335) is different from the NLSCY sample size (N=342) for Niagara Falls.
• ⁷The 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.