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About the AEDI
What is the AEDI?
The AEDI helps communities understand how their local children are doing developmentally and compared to children nationally and in other communities.
The AEDI pinpoints the strengths of community resources and services as well as what can be improved.
Teachers complete the AEDI checklist for each child based on their knowledge of the children in their class.
The AEDI Checklist consistsof over 100 questions in the 5 developmental areas of:
- Physical Health and Wellbeing
- Social Competence
- Emotional Maturity
- Language and Cognitive Skills
- Communication Skills and General Knowledge
AEDI results are mapped to provide communities with a picture of the early childhood development strengths and vulnerabilities in each community and on each of the developmental areas.
By understanding children's development at school entry, communities can consider what community resources and services may be affecting children's development, and in what way. More information on early childhood development.
Why measure the whole community?
By gathering information on the whole community:
- The AEDI provides communities with the opportunity to strengthen collaborations between schools, early childhood services, and local agencies to support children and families.
- Along with a range of other community indicators, the AEDI can be used by policy makers to plan and evaluate place-based initiatives for children.
- Communities can use the AEDI to develop and evaluate their efforts to improve children's outcomes.
Read more about uses for the AEDI.
Why start young?
The quality of a child's earliest environments and the availability of appropriate experiences at the right stages of development are crucial in determining the strengths or weakness of the brain's architecture.
Both nature and nurture (genes and environment) influence our children's development.
Supporting optimal early childhood development greatly increases children's chances of:
- A successful transition to school
- Achieving better learning outcomes whilst at school
- Better education, employment and health after school
Click here for more information on early childhood development.
How did the AEDI come about?
The AEDI is based on the Canadian Early Development Instrument (EDI) and has been adapted for use in Australia. The Canadian EDI was developed by Dr Magdalena Janus and Dr Dan Offord at the Offord Centre for Child Studies, Mc Master University, Canada. As of 2008, the EDI has been completed on over 520,000 Canadian children.
In 2003, Australia began the adaption of the EDI, and became the AEDI. This was done by the Centre for Community Child Health at The Royal Children's Hospital Melbourne in partnership with the Telethon Institute for Child Health Research, Perth. More information on who's who in the AEDI.
The Australian Government Department of Education, Employment and Workplace Relations has invested $20.4 million to 30 June 2011 to implement the AEDI nationally.
Read more about how the AEDI was developed.
Adapting the AEDI for Indigenous Children
A new project to further adapt the AEDI to ensure its relevance and sensitivity to the needs of Indigenous children was initiated by the Centre for Developmental Health and the Kulunga Indigenous Research Network at Perth's Telethon Institute for Child Health Research in 2007, on behalf of the national AEDI partnership between the Centre for Community Child Health and Telethon Institute for Child Health Research.
The AEDI Indigenous Adaptation Study has been overseen by a National Indigenous AEDI Reference Group. Indigenous peak bodies and grass roots community organisations, parents, unions and government and non-government stakeholders were involved in its development and continue to contribute to the study's progression. Shell
Click here for more information on Adapting the AEDI for Indigenous Children
Frequently asked questions
Read more in our Frequently asked questions.