Understanding the Early Years - Early Childhood Development in South Eastman, Manitoba

Approximately 15.4% of children in South Eastman were living in low income families, and 13.9% were headed by a single parent. Families of low socio-economic status tend to be dispersed throughout the community, and there are only a few areas of high socio-economic status. Despite their socio-economic status, the children in this community are faring very well in all areas except language development.

Results based on the Early Development Instrument, a measure derived from reports by children's kindergarten teachers, indicated that children in South Eastman fare especially well in social competence, physical health and well-being, communication skills and general knowledge, and emotional health and maturity. Their scores on language and cognitive development were comparable to national averages.

Findings based on direct assessments of children's cognitive development and vocabulary indicated that the children in South Eastman scored close to national norms in cognitive development but well below the norm for vocabulary. In fact, the prevalence of children with low scores on the vocabulary test was very high: more than two times national norms.

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.

In all seven 2001-02 UEY communities, use of educational, cultural and recreational resources is quite low, 3.4 on a 10.0 point scale. At 3.3 on this scale, South Eastman's use of resources is lower than the average, but the difference is not statistically significant.

Because it was low overall for the seven communities, use of resources was explored further by considering the availability of educational, cultural and recreational resources for the seven UEY communities. In South Eastman, the availability of educational resources was 43.0%, cultural resources was 27.6% and recreational resources was 42.3% compared with 69.2%, 50.0%, and 53.7%, for the combined NLSCY data of the seven UEY communities.

For South Eastman, the total score out of 100 for family and community indicators was 71.7, 4.5 points above the average of 67.2 for the seven 2001-02 UEY communities. Its strengths were neighbourhood safety and residential stability, and social support. This community received no low scores on indicators of family processes or community factors. Despite good overall development, children in South Eastman would benefit from efforts to improve their language and cognitive development outcomes.

¹ This ''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.

Understanding the Early Years - Early Childhood Development in South Eastman, Manitoba - October 2003

Study Highlights