THE Australian Early Development Index (AEDI) AND THE City of Armadale
This is a summary of the report entitled:
EVERY CHILD DESERVES THE BEST START IN LIFE
Communicare AEDI Local Champion Community Report: Strengths, Needs and Resources
In response to the Australian Early Development Index (AEDI) 2012 Results
For the City of Armadale community
Visit www.aedi.org.au for more information on the AEDI and the results for the City of Armadale community.
The Australian Early Development Index (AEDI) is a measure of how young children are developing in communities around
Australia before they attend school. It is based around 5 developmental domains:
The 5 domains of the AEDI
PHYSICAL HEALTH AND WELLBEING: How fit and well our children are.
SOCIAL COMPETENCE: Skills our children use to get along with others.
EMOTIONAL MATURITY: Skills our children use to get along with others.
LANGUAGE AND COGNITIVE SKILLS (SCHOOL BASED): Skills our children use to speak, understand and think.
This is based on the types of educational activities children do at school.
COMMUNICATION SKILLS AND GENERAL KNOWLEDGE: What our children know and all the different ways
they communicate this.
The 2012 AEDI collected data on 1,015 children in pre-primary within the City of Armadale compared with 762 children in
2009. The majority of children are developmentally ‘on track’. Approximately 1 in 4 (28.0%) children in the City of Armadale
are developmentally vulnerable in one or more of the five AEDI developmental domains.
The City of Armadale had proportionally more developmentally vulnerable children than Australia and Western Australia
across the summary indicators (i.e. developmentally vulnerable on 1 or more domain or developmentally vulnerable on 2
or more domains).
Armadale had more developmentally vulnerable children than Australia and Western Australia across all domains with the
exception of social competence which showed more vulnerability than the state average but less than the national average.
Since 2009, the greatest improvement occurred in the language and cognitive skills domain. There has also been an
improvement in the level of vulnerable children in the domains of physical health and wellbeing, emotional maturity and
communication skills and general knowledge.
The proportion of children developmentally vulnerable in the domain of social competence has remained the same since
2009.
The suburbs with the highest proportion of children developmentally vulnerable were:
 Brookdale
37.3%
 Camillo
33.9%
 Roleystone
31.6%
However, it is important to note that as each suburb has a different population of children the numbers of children in each
suburb also needs to be considered. Therefore, the suburbs with the highest number of children developmentally vulnerable
are:
 Seville Grove 51
 Armadale
50
 Kelmscott
37
On 21st May 2014 the Communicare AEDI Local Champion Project facilitated a community consultation with a combined
AEDI information session and a presentation by parenting presenter and author, Maggie Dent. Fifty-nine (59) people
attended the session. Twenty-seven (27) of these provided valid responses in a community strength and need survey. In
addition, eight (8) parents and service providers completed surveys from other AEDI sessions, playgroups and events and
five (5) early years service provider also completed an online survey. Community consultation within the City of Armadale
took place with forty (40) early years service providers and families. This consisted of seventeen (17) service providers and
twenty-three (23) local parents.
The Armadale community identified the following as the most common strengths by both service providers and parents
for young children and their families1:
Common theme 1: Accessible family support services (including playgroups) and parenting education
Service providers said:

Provide universal services that are free

Playgroup for 0-4yo at school
Parents said:

Education and support groups available

Play in the park
Common theme 2: Library services
Service providers said:

Library activities

Toy library
Parents said:

Great libraries

Library – Better Beginnings program, story time etc.
Common theme 3: Good parks and play spaces for children and families
Service providers said:

Beautiful play areas and environments
Parents said:

Plenty of outside parks and reserves
Common theme 4: Diverse community organisations/services available in the area
Service providers said:

Centres such as Champion
Parents said:

Mulberry Tree Child Care Roleystone
Common theme 5: Activities and events for children and families
Service providers said:

Free afternoon sport for the children
Parents said:

Many early years events
Common theme 6: Community attitudes
Service providers said:

Passionate champions of the early years
Parents said:

Strong sense of community
Common theme 7: Strong networks within the community
Service Providers said:
A strong AEYN [Armadale Early Years Network]

Common theme 8: Services working with each other in partnership with families
Service providers said:

Collaboration between agencies & individuals working with families
Parents said:

Working together
The Armadale community has also identified common community needs which are recommended to be addressed.
These include1:
• More child-friendly events and activities and ‘low-key’ parenting support and education
“Free social events held in familiar, non-threatening locations” “More events and relationship building programs in Camillo”
•
More access to child health services and targeted family support services
“More child health nurses and counselling services” “Parent Programs - Protective Behaviours” “Dealing with learning disabilities counselling”
•
More opportunity for safe, outdoor play and access to the natural environment for young children
“More accessible nature play parks and bush areas” “Nature playground – more access to river”
•
‘What’s on’ community advertising
“Some advertising in the local day cares/schools to let people know about all the services available” “Better advertising of community events”
•
More sporting/exercise facilities and opportunities
“Exercise for new mums” “More sporting clubs”
•
Consistency of services
“Consistency to keep services running without a break due to funding”
•
Flexible and affordable child care
“Affordable child care”
•
Community safety
“Safety on the streets”
HOW DO PEOPLE FIND OUT WHAT IS GOING ON IN THEIR COMMUNITY?
The most common means of finding out what is going on in the community is via word of mouth followed by
school/kindergarten/child care newsletter, Armadale Early Years Network (AEYN), local newspaper, online and library.
Please note: From 1st July 2014, 2014 the Australian Early Development Index (AEDI)
will be called the Australian Early Development Census (AEDC).
For further information please visit the new website www.aedc.gov.au
There will be a more extensive launch of the site later in 2014.
1
Please note only a selection of responses were included to represent comments made for each common theme