Target 4

Measures

• Number of First Nations children assessed as developmentally on track in all five domains.


• Proportion (%) of First Nations children assessed as developmentally on track in all five domains, by sex, remoteness area, IRSD quintile and over time.


• Proportion (%) of non-Indigenous children assessed as developmentally on track in all five domains, over time.

Available by

• Sex: males, females, persons.


• Remoteness Area (AUS, STE, IREG only): Major Cities, Inner regional, Outer regional, Remote, Very remote.


• Index of Relative Socio-economic Disadvantage (IRSD) (AUS only): quintiles from most disadvantaged to least disadvantaged.

Data periods

• 2021


• Time trend data: 2009, 2012, 2015, 2018, 2021.

Data source

• Australian Early Development Census (AEDC), via the Australian Government Productivity Commission website for AUS and STE levels (PC 2022; AEDC 2022).


• AIHW analyses of the AEDC via the Australian Government Department of Education for SA4, SA3, IREG, IARE and LGA levels.

Region types

• Main structures: Australia, states and territories, Statistical Areas Level 4 (SA4), Statistical Areas Level 3 (SA3).


• Indigenous structures: Indigenous Regions (IREG), Indigenous Areas (IARE).


• Non-ABS structures: Local Government Areas (LGA).

Suppression

• To prevent the identification of individual children as developmentally vulnerable, where 90 per cent or more of a group is developmentally vulnerable or has emerging strengths, the following suppression applies:
  
  
  
  • The percentage of vulnerable children is reported as ≥90%;
  
  
  • The number of vulnerable children is reported as greater than or equal to the equivalent of 90% of children with valid instruments in that group, rounded up to the next integer.
  
  
  
  


• Where 90 per cent or more of a group is developmentally vulnerable, the percentage and number of children that are not developmentally vulnerable or with emerging strengths is also suppressed, as follows:
  
  
  
  • The percentage of children in each other developmental category is reported as <10%;
  
  
  • The number of children in each other developmental category is reported as less than the equivalent of 10% of children in that group with a valid instrument, rounded down to the previous integer.
  
  
  
  


• When the percentage of ‘Developmentally on track in all five domains’ is suppressed to ≤10%, these groups have been suppressed to ensure that groups containing ≥90% of children who are developmentally vulnerable are also suppressed. However, this does not necessarily mean that the group contains 90% or more vulnerable children, as some or all of the students may be developmentally at risk rather than developmentally vulnerable.


• Suppression has been applied where less than 80% children qualified for the denominator for the calculation of developmentally on track on all five domains based on the 80% coverage rule.


• Consequential suppression has also been applied where required to prevent back-calculation.


• Other suppressions are applied based on sections 7.1 and 7.2 of the AEDC Data Guidelines.

Notes

Counting rules

• Children who score above the 25th percentile, determined using the cut-off points established in the first national census (2009 AEDC), are classified as ‘on track’. A set of cut-off points define on track for each of the five domains: physical health and well-being, social competence, emotional maturity, language and cognitive skills (school-based), and communication skills and general knowledge.

Exclusions (both numerator and denominator):

• children for whom Indigenous status was not stated


• children without valid scores in any of the five domains. Instruments are flagged as invalid because domain scores are not calculated for: children with special needs; children in class less than one month; children aged less than four years old; or where the teacher is unable to answer at least 75% of items in any given domain.


• children without the sufficient information across the five domains to determine whether they are developmentally on track in all five domains. (Sufficient information: children with valid scores in each of the five domains, or with valid scores in fewer than five domains but at least one of those is ‘developmentally at risk’ or ‘developmentally vulnerable’).

Disaggregation

• Remoteness Areas are defined by the Australian Statistical Geographical Standard (ASGS) and based on the Accessibility/Remoteness Index of Australia which uses the road distance to goods and services (such as general practitioners, hospitals and specialist care) to measure relative accessibility of regions around Australia (ABS 2023b).


• IRSD quintile analysis based on ABS IRSD 2021 which focuses on relative socio-economic disadvantage, using SA1 as the building block. Data are reported by IRSD quintile that are determined at the Australian level and exclude children with unknown or unavailable SEIFA score (ABS 2023c).

Data quality considerations

• For 2021, AEDC data were collected for 305,015 children, equating to an estimated 95.5 per cent of first year school enrolments based on ABS schools data. Of the 305,015 children with data collected for the AEDC, 20,646 children (6.8 per cent) were Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander children. Based on ABS estimates, this equates to an estimated 96.2 per cent of first year school enrolments for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children.


• Of the participating children, 5.7 per cent did not have domain scores calculated or did not have sufficient information across the five domains to determine whether they are developmentally on track in all five domains (10.3 per cent of participating Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander children).


• For information on how AEDC results may have been affected by the COVID-19 pandemic see How has the COVID-19 pandemic affected children? – AEDC 2021 Data Story.