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Understanding the Early Years An Update of Early Childhood Development Results in Four Canadian Communities - July 2005

I. Introduction

A. The Understanding the Early Years Initiative

Understanding the Early Years (UEY) is a national initiative that provides information to help strengthen the capacity of communities to make informed decisions about the best policies and most appropriate programs to serve families with young children. It seeks to provide information about the influence of community factors on young children’s development, and to enhance community capacity to use these data to monitor early childhood development and to create effective community-based supports.

Recent research from neuro-biology on brain development and from large-scale longitudinal studies has stressed the importance of investing in the early years of children’s development. This research shows that these formative years are critical, and that the kind of nurturing and stimulation that children receive during their first few years can have a major impact on the rest of their lives.

The evidence also suggests that neighbourhoods and communities where children grow and learn directly influence their development. They affect parents’ ability to provide the best possible family environment, and the ability of schools to offer the best possible education.

Neighbourhoods, communities, provinces and regions across Canada differ in important ways. Therefore, to deliver programs that are sensitive and responsive to local conditions, the policy sector concerned with children, which includes families, private and voluntary organizations, and local, provincial, and federal governments, requires community-specific information about children and the places where they are raised. Understanding the Early Years contributes to this process.

The UEY initiative was launched with a pilot study in York region (now the North Quadrant of Toronto, Ontario) in 1999. In 2000-2001 five communities implemented the UEY initiative, and in 2001-2002 another seven communities became study sites. This report provides an update for four of the 2000-2001 communities. These include: Prince Albert, Saskatchewan; Winnipeg (School District No. 1), Manitoba; Prince Edward Island, and Southwest Newfoundland. Data for these communities were collected in 2000-2001 (see reports from the UEY pilot projects at http://www.sdc.gc.ca/en/hip/sd/310_UEYReports.shtml). A second cycle of data was collected in 2003-2004, using the same measures and data collection procedures. This study provides a portrait of early childhood outcomes, and family and community processes, for each of these four communities using both sets of data.

Although the data collected from the UEY sites allow for comparisons of outcomes between 2000 and 2004 for the four UEY communities in this study, this is not the primary purpose of this report, as in many cases the sample sizes are too small for accurately measuring change at the community level. Also, many of the initiatives put in place by the communities are not likely to realize their benefits in a four-year period.

Data describing the outcomes of kindergarten children at age 5, as well as the family and community environments in which they live, were collected from three sources: their parents, their teachers, and from the children themselves. The data for the earlier community research reports and this report were based on the Early Development Instrument (EDI) and the National Longitudinal Survey of Children and Youth (NLSCY). Samples were drawn in each of the communities from families with children who were in kindergarten and age 5. Children were administered direct assessments of their language skills, and teachers assessed children’s performance using the EDI. Parents were interviewed following the NLSCY protocol.

The results from the NLSCY assessments completed by the children are compared with the national means, developed from the national survey, which has a nationally representative sample.

The first aim of this report is to discern the relationship between certain family and community factors and children’s developmental outcomes, and to provide some indication of what actions might further improve children’s outcomes in these communities. The analyses are based on data collected in these communities in 2000 and 2004. This analysis estimates the effects associated with nine child and family demographic factors, and ten family and community processes.

The second aim of this report is to provide a profile of each community, including the demographic factors, the family and community processes, and the early childhood outcomes measured in UEY. The profile shows changes between 2000-02 and 2003-04 for each set of factors, and where possible, compares results for local conditions with provincial- and national-level norms.

B. How the Study was Conducted

The information contained in this document was collected and analyzed using a variety of methods.

Three major types of information regarding the children's development were collected.

The first type of developmental information was collected by directly assessing children using two instruments¹ that have been widely used for research. One is the Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test (Revised), which is a test of children’s receptive vocabulary developed by Lloyd and Leota Dunn at the University of Hawaii. The second is the Who Am I, a more general developmental assessment tool developed by Drs. Molly de Lemos and Brian Doig at the Australian Council for Educational Research.

The second type of information was collected from kindergarten teachers about 6 months after the children entered school at ages 5 and 6. UEY used the Early Development Instrument, a checklist developed by Dr. Dan Offord and Dr. Magdalena Janus at the Offord Centre for Child Studies at McMaster University. It considers five aspects of children’s development:

Physical health and well-being;
Social competence;
Emotional maturity;
Language and cognitive development; and
Communication skills and general knowledge.

Teachers of all kindergarten children attending public schools in each community were asked to complete the questionnaire about the behaviours and development of each child in their class.

¹A test of number knowledge was also administered, but it is not reported on in this report as it did not yield information that was sufficiently reliable for comparative purposes.

The third type of data was collected from the children’s parents and guardians, using a modified version of the questionnaire used in Canada’s National Longitudinal Survey of Children and Youth (NLSCY). The parents provided information about their social and economic backgrounds; their children’s activities and involvement in the community; their children’s health and their social, emotional, and behavioural development. These data were used to construct a measure of Positive Social Behaviour and indicators of four types of behaviour problems.

In each UEY site a random sample was selected to participate in the survey. Table 1-1 displays the sample sizes for each community for the 2000 and 2004 cycles.

Table 1-1
Sample Sizes for UEY Community Research

	2000	2004
Prince Albert, Saskatchewan	433	479
Winnipeg, Manitoba (District 1)	595	525
Prince Edward Island	508	519
SW Newfoundland	289	227
Total	1,825	1,750

Note: Sample sizes include all participating children who had data for at least one of the measures (EDI, NLSCY, PPVT-R).

C. Why the Study is of Interest

Understanding the Early Years combines information about children with information about their families and the communities in which they live. This, in turn, provides an understanding of the relationship between children’s outcomes and the environments in which they are raised. This information is important for Canada’s parents and communities who want to help their children develop well. It also helps the individuals, institutions, and communities who work with children to understand these processes at the levels where action is often most effective, the neighbourhood and community.

This report highlights some of the key findings from the information that was collected from teachers, parents, and the children. It examines the overall development of children in kindergarten and provides a more detailed look at the outcomes of these children. It suggests some of the unique strengths from which these communities can work, and some challenges to overcome in continuing to build a collective commitment to ensure the health, well-being, and positive development of its young children.

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