27 AprEarly Development Census data
Australian Early Development Census – 2021 Data out now!
The Australian Early Development Census is a measure of the development of children across the nation. It is conducted every three years, and includes all children in the first year of school. It can be used at a national, state and local level to see how children are tracking in five key areas, called domains:
- physical health and wellbeing
- social competence
- emotional maturity
- language and cognitive skills (school-based)
- communication skills and general knowledge.
Children are classified as on track, at risk or vulnerable depending on how they are assessed on a variety of questions that are based on teacher observation.
At a national level, vulnerability has increased a little with one in five children still starting school behind their peers. More children fell behind in the area of language and cognitive skills, with 7.3% of children falling below the benchmark set in 2009, compared to 6.6% in 2018.
Developmental vulnerability has not increased in Victoria although more children have fallen behind in the area of language and cognitive skills.
Teachers also report how many students have special needs status, in which case their score is not included in the data, and how many need additional assistance. Trends over time mirror what early educators have been seeing, that there has been a large, almost 25%, increase in children with undiagnosed additional needs from 2018 to 2021.
| 2009 (%) | 2012 (%) | 2015 (%) | 2018 (%) | 2021 (%) | |
| Children with special needs status | 4.4 | 4.9 | 4.7 | 4.6 | 5.2 |
| Children needing further assessment (e.g. medical and physical, behaviour management, emotional and cognitive development) | 10.7 | 10.5 | 11.8 | 13.3 | 16.3 |
Services can use local level data to understand what is happening in your community, to help plan the types of services and partnerships needed to better support children.- Visit here to see data for your community https://www.aedc.gov.au/data-explorer/
