Australian kids doing better in key development indicators

Australian five year olds are developing better than they were three years ago and have improved in four of the five key development indicators, according to the latest round of data from the Australian Early Development Index (AEDI).

Minister for Early Childhood Peter Garrett said the 2012 data, released today, showed a decrease of 1.6 per cent in the number of children who were developmentally vulnerable in one or more areas compared to the results from the first AEDI in 2009.

Releasing the results during a community event in Blacktown, Mr Garrett said the data showed that Australian children were showing development improvements in social competence, emotional maturity, language and cognitive skills, and communication and general knowledge skills. Results in physical health and well-being have remained steady.

Data was collected in May 2012 on nearly 290,000 children, representing 96.5 per cent of children in their first year of formal full-time school.

"The results showed that since the first round of data was collected, the work that communities and governments have been doing to better support children and families has been paying off," Mr Garrett said.

"Research shows that investing time, effort and resources in children's early years, when their brains are developing rapidly, benefits them and the whole community.

"Australia is the only country in the world that collects this level of information about health, well-being and development of our children before they enter school. Communities have been able to use this data to develop new programs for children and their families, and deliver extra, targeted help to children at risk.

"The overall national improvement means that over the next five years as they hit school age, we can expect 24,000 more children to start their school life better prepared."

Key findings from the 2012 AEDI data include:

• The number of children who are developmentally vulnerable in one or more areas has fallen since 2009, to 22 per cent - a 1.6 per cent improvement.

• In four of the five areas, Australian children are doing better than they were in 2009 - that is, there are fewer children who are developmentally vulnerable in each of these four areas.

• Indigenous children are showing significant signs of progress. In 2012, 43.2 per cent of children were developmentally vulnerable, down from 47.4 per cent in 2009. While this figure is still far too high, it is a strong improvement in just three years.

• QLD and the Northern Territory showed the most improvement. In QLD, there has been a decrease in the number of developmentally vulnerable children of 3.4 per cent, and in the NT, of 3.2 per cent.

• The greatest level of national improvement was in the language and cognitive development domain with 6.8 per cent of children reported as developmentally vulnerable in 2012, compared to 8.9 per cent in 2009.

Mr Garrett said the 2012 results point to the long-term benefits of the Gillard Governments strong focus on early childhood education and care.

"Thanks to the Labor Government, we now have a million children in high quality child care and are working towards every child in the country has access to quality early childhood education in the year before they start school," he said.

"This means more children are getting the early support they need in the years before they start school - and as a result, are doing better in their development.

"And we also know that this improvement will have long-term benefits for our children. For example, we've seen steady improvement in Year 3 NAPLAN results over the past four years, since Labor's focus on early childhood education and care first began.

"But we still have more work to do - as a government and as a community. More than one in five children are still at risk of being behind when they enter school - around 60,000 children in 2012- and that's not good enough.

"Labor is committed to giving every young Australian the best start in life. That's why we we're investing a record $23.2 billion in early childhood over the next four years. And it's why we will implement the National Plan for School Improvement so that every child gets a world-class education no matter which school they attend."

The AEDI results are now available online for local communities to view. With this data, governments and communities will be able to develop tailor-made initiatives to help give local children the best possible start in life.

To view the 2012 AEDI data visit: www.aedi.org.au