Target 4

Measures

• Number of First Nations children assessed as developmentally on track in all five domains.


• Proportion (%) of First Nations children assessed as developmentally on track in all five domains, by sex, remoteness area, IRSD quintile and over time.


• Proportion (%) of non-Indigenous children assessed as developmentally on track in all five domains, over time.

Available by

• Sex: males, females, persons.


• Remoteness Area: Major Cities, Inner regional, Outer regional, Remote areas, Very remote Areas.


• Index of Relative Socio-economic Disadvantage (IRSD): most disadvantaged, least disadvantaged.

Data periods

• 2021


• Time trend data: 2009, 2012, 2015, 2018, 2021.

Data source

Australian Early Development Census (AEDC), via the Australian Government Productivity Commission website (PC 2023; AEDC 2022).

Region types

Main structures: Australia, states and territories.

Suppression

Measure based on publicly available data. No further suppression rules applied.

Notes

• Children who score above the 25th percentile, determined using the cut-off points established in the first national census (2009 AEDC), are classified as ‘on track’. A set of cut-off points define on track for each of the five domains: physical health and well-being, social competence, emotional maturity, language and cognitive skills (school-based), and communication skills and general knowledge.


• For 2021, AEDC data were collected for 305,015 children, equating to an estimated 95.5 per cent of first year school enrolments based on ABS schools data. Of the 305,015 children with data collected for the AEDC, 20,646 children (6.8 per cent) were Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander children. Based on ABS estimates, this equates to an estimated 96.2 per cent of first year school enrolments for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children.


• Of the participating children, 5.7 per cent did not have domain scores calculated or did not have sufficient information across the five domains to determine whether they are developmentally on track in all five domains (10.3 per cent of participating Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander children).


• For information on how AEDC results may have been affected by the COVID-19 pandemic see How has the COVID-19 pandemic affected children? – AEDC 2021 Data Story.


• Remoteness Areas are defined by the Australian Statistical Geographical Standard (ASGS) and based on the Accessibility/Remoteness Index of Australia which uses the road distance to goods and services (such as general practitioners, hospitals and specialist care) to measure relative accessibility of regions around Australia (ABS 2023f).


• Selected IRSD quintile analysis based on ABS IRSD 2016, using SA1 as the building block. Data are reported by IRSD quintile that are determined at the Australian level and exclude children with unknown or unavailable SEIFA score (ABS 2018).