Early childhood development not meeting established targets
Positive early childhood development is crucial to overall health later on, but Lethbridge lags behind other parts of the country in five core areas of early development.
At a recent roundtable discussion hosted by the United Way of Lethbridge and Southwestern Alberta, the Lethbridge Early Years Coalition identified a need to address children in the zero to five age range who are not meeting established developmental targets.
As part of the Early Childhood Development Mapping Project, development was measured three times during the 2009 to 2013 collection period and the results published in 2014. Measurements were taken using the Early Development Instrument, a questionnaire completed by kindergarten teachers during the second half of the school year.
EDI assesses a child’s ability to meet developmental expectations in social competence, language and thinking skills, physical health and well-being, emotional maturity, and communication and general knowledge.
The test was conducted across Canada between 2009 and 2013.
“What we now know is children entering kindergarten, around five years of age, in our province, there is a large amount of children who are not developmentally where they need to be,” said Vicki Hazelwood, coordinator for LEYC.
“So our coalition is working to find the gaps in service so when children get to the kindergarten level, they are at an appropriate developmental level.”
Lethbridge scored 49.4 per cent of kindergarten children who were developing appropriately in all five developmental areas.
The study found 29.5 per cent of kindergarten children were experiencing “great” difficulties in one or more areas, compared to 28.9 per cent in Alberta and 25.4 per cent in Canada.
The city was broken into five subcommunities for the study. Each subcommunity had its own strengths and weaknesses.
Overall, the city core had the weakest overall scores. It was also the only sub-community to score “low” on the socio-economic scale.
LEYC is made up of agencies and organizations that serve families in the community. The focus is on building support for the early years of children’s development, from ages zero to five.
The zero-to-five age range is considered a crucial development period. During this window the development which takes place has a strong impact on future physical and mental health, as well as education success and success in relationships.
“That age range is a time when we can really make a difference in a person’s development for future outcomes,” said Hazelwood.
Provincially, there is a recognition that putting funding toward investments in early years programming is a good investment. Noted economist James Heckman indicated an investment of $1 in early childhood programming could result in a return to society of $8.
“It’s worth it to invest in those early years,” said Hazelwood.
“Strong societies are made up of healthy, contributing individuals. It really takes a community to ensure children have a healthy start. As a community, as we come together around that idea, I think we will see healthy outcomes in the future.”
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