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The AEDI Checklist

Teachers complete a checklist for each child in their first year of full-time school. The checklist contains about 100 questions over five developmental areas to find out a wide range of information about children. Click here to view the AEDI Checklist questions.

In each of the five development domains there are a series of questions asked to obtain information about children. The areas covered by the questions are:

Physical Health and Wellbeing

This area looks at whether a child is healthy, independent, ready each day. This includes:

• Gross and fine motor skills
  • Holding a pencil
  • Running in the playground
  • Motor coordination
  • Adequate energy levels for classroom activities
• Independence in looking after own needs
  • Daily living skills

Social Competence

This area looks at how a child plays, gets along with others and shares, is self-confident. This includes:

• Curiosity about the world
• Eagerness to try new experiences
• Knowledge of standards and acceptable behaviour in a public place
• Ability to control own behaviour
• Appropriate respect for adult authority
• Cooperation with others
• Following rules
• Ability to play and work with other children

Emotional Maturity

This area looks at whether a child is able to concentrate, help others, is patient, not aggressive or angry. This includes:

• Ability to reflect before acting
• Balance between being too fearful and too impulsive
• Ability to deal with feelings at an age-appropriate level
• Empathetic response to other people's feelings

Language and Cognitive Skills

This area looks at whether a child is interested in reading and writing, can count and recognise numbers and shapes. This includes:

• Reading awareness
• Age-appropriate reading and writing skills
• Age-appropriate numeracy skills
• Board games
• Ability to understand similarities and differences
• Ability to recite back specific pieces of information from memory

Communication skills and general knowledge

This area looks at whether a child can tell a story, communicate with adults and children, articulate themselves. This includes:

• Skills to communicate needs and wants in socially appropriate ways
• Symbolic use of language
• Story telling
• Age-appropriate knowledge about life and the world around