Outcome
The Early Development Instrument (EDI) is a standardized assessment of early child development. The EDI is conducted in the latter half of the kindergarten year by a child’s school teacher. It provides a holistic assessment of children’s development through 104 questions across five domains: physical health and well-being, social competence, emotional maturity, language and cognitive development, and communication skills. The EDI has been shown to be psychometrically sound and a good predictor of adult health, education and social outcomes. In British Columbia, schools conduct the EDI in 3-year waves, so only approximately one third of children are tested in a given year.
Our primary outcome was the total EDI score (/50), and secondary outcomes included each of the two EDI sub-domain scores shown to be strongest predictors of later school performance - the language and cognitive development domain, and the communication skills and general knowledge domain – as well as the binary indicators of ‘developmental vulnerability’ and a designation of ‘special needs.’ A child was considered to be developmental vulnerable if they had an EDI score that was equal to or lower than the score corresponding to the 10th percentile of all kindergarten children in one or more EDI sub-domain. ‘Special needs’ is a British Columbia Ministry of Education designation associated with allocation of additional funding to help cover the costs of additional staff, specialized learning materials, physical accommodations or equipment, and assessments to enable a student to meet their educational and social needs.