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A growing body of evidence suggests that engagement with quality early childhood education and care (ECEC) programs such as preschool can enhance children’s early development. The Australian Early Development Census (AEDC) provides a unique opportunity to explore the relationship between ECEC and children’s developmental outcomes in a full population cohort of Australian school entrants. The AEDC is a teacher-rated checklist that provides data on ECEC experiences in the year before starting school, as well as five important domains of child development at school entry: physical health and wellbeing, social competence, emotional maturity, language and cognitive skills, and communication skills and general knowledge. In 2009, the AEDC was completed for 97.5% of Australian children in their first year of formal schooling ( N = 261,147; M = 5 years, 7 months of age). Logistic regression analyses revealed that attendance at preschool was associated with reduced odds (OR = 0.69, p < 0.001 to OR = 0.40, p < 0.001) of being in the vulnerable range (<10th percentile) on four of the five AEDC domains (with the exception of emotional maturity; OR = 0.89, p = 0.002), compared to other ECEC experiences, or care exclusively by parents. Subsequent analyses revealed that this effect was evident for children living in both advantaged and disadvantaged communities. Together, the results suggest that engagement with preschool programs in Australia may present a plausible, equitable, and modifiable approach to improving children's developmental outcomes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• One in four children delay school entry in New South Wales, Australia. • Boys, younger children, and advantaged children are more likely to delay. • The tendency to start school when first eligible clusters in disadvantaged urban areas. • Older starters are more likely to be ready for the first year of school. In Australia's most populous state, New South Wales (NSW), children born between January and July have the choice to start school in the year they turn five, or delay entry until the year they turn six. We used linked administrative data for children who started school in NSW in 2009 or 2012 (N = 162,878) to identify child, family and area characteristics associated with delayed entry, and to explore the relationship between school starting age and five domains of child development, measured using the Australian Early Development Census (AEDC) in the first year of school. Among both the 2009 and 2012 cohorts, 26% of children delayed starting school until the year they turned six. Area-level rates of delay ranged from 8% to 54% across 198 areas in NSW, with lower levels in disadvantaged urban areas. Factors associated with delayed entry included male sex, a birth date close to the enrolment cut-off date, socioeconomic advantage, and having a mother born in Australia. There was a strong, significant relationship between school starting age and early childhood development: each month of maturity corresponded to an increase of approximately 3% in the probability of scoring above the 25th percentile in all five AEDC domains. Independent of school starting age, children who were older in relation to their classroom peers had better development outcomes. The potential for initial age-related differences to impact later school outcomes warrants further longitudinal research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This opening paper presents the background to this Special Issue devoted to new international research using Early Development Instrument (EDI). The Canadian EDI and its adaptations to the Australian Early Development Census (AEDC), as well as the Chinese version used in Hong Kong, are examples of an assessment tool that brings data on child development at 4–6 years to a population level, in an accessible, feasible, and psychometrically valid manner. EDI measures are increasingly being used by governments, at all levels of jurisdiction, as a means of monitoring the status of early childhood development and then tracking progress over time. Recent innovations linking administrative datasets with EDI data have enabled research into the predictors, correlates, and sequelae of developmental status in early childhood. The eleven papers included in this Special Issue represent thoughtful, systematic, theory-based programs of research, informed by the broad scope of the EDI and supported by the availability of data for large, normative populations and especially often under-reported sub-populations of children. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Major policy reforms were instigated in 2008 in Australia to ensure that all children have access to a preschool program in the year before starting school. The Australian Early Development Census (AEDC) provides a means of monitoring the impact of these reforms at the population level, as teachers of all children in their first year of school retrospectively report on children's preschool experiences every three years. Early indications from AEDC data spanning the preschool years of 2008–2011 indicated that the proportion of children attending preschool remained relatively stable over this period. In this short communication, we update this with analysis of preschool trends from 2008 to 2014. We find evidence of increasing preschool attendance over this longer time frame (80.43% in 2008, compared to 91.30% in 2014; OR 2.53, 99% CI 2.44–2.62). Consistent with earlier data, children from disadvantaged communities had higher odds of non-attendance, compared to those living in the most advantaged communities (OR 2.94, 99% CI 2.74–3.15). In 2014, children who did not attend preschool were also disproportionately Indigenous and from non-English speaking backgrounds. Findings suggest that participation in preschool appears to have increased, concurrent to government efforts to promote participation through universal access. Engaging the most vulnerable families in preschool programs remains a major challenge that requires continued policy focus. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Participation in a preschool program in the year before starting school can promote children’s healthy development, and has the potential to reduce inequities in developmental outcomes for at-risk subpopulations. In Australia, boosting preschool attendance has emerged as a national policy priority. In this paper, we draw on data from the Australian Early Development Census (AEDC) to describe preschool attendance in two sequential population cohorts, with preschool experiences in 2008 and 2011 reported retrospectively by teachers of children in their first year of school. Overall, findings show that the proportion of children attending preschool remained relatively stable between the two AEDC cohorts (in 2008, preschool attendance ranged from 57.0% to 85.8% across the states and territories, while in 2011, attendance ranged from 49.2% to 93.7%). At a subpopulation level, children from non-English speaking and Indigenous backgrounds and children living in disadvantaged communities all had substantially higher odds of not attending preschool in both 2008 and 2011. These findings highlight the need to maintain policy attention on efforts to further reduce barriers to preschool access for at-risk subpopulations, and the value of monitoring population trends in preschool attendance to better inform policy and service provision. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]