Validity of the Australian Early Development Index (AEDI)

Abstract

The Australian Early Development Index (AEDI) is an adaptation the Canadian Early Development Instrument originally developed by Janus and Offord (2000). This teacher-completed checklist is used to describe the proportion of children within defined communities who are developmentally vulnerable on entry to primary school. It assesses overall developmental status and functioning in five domains: physical health and wellbeing, social competence, emotional maturity, language and cognitive development, communication skills and general knowledge. This paper describes a series of validity studies of the AEDI conducted with a sub-sample of 642 children from the national Longitudinal Study of Australian Children (LSAC) age 4 cohort. It reports findings regarding the validity of the AEDI as: a) an indicator of early child development outcomes at ages 4-5 years; and b) as a predictor of school learning, behavioural and social outcomes at ages 6-7 years. Comparative measures assessed within the LSAC include the Pediatric Quality of Life Inventory (Peds-QL), Parents Evaluation of Developmental Status (PEDS), Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ), Academic Rating Scale (ARS), parent ratings of reading, writing and numeracy, the Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test (PPVT), and the 'Who am I' Developmental Assessment (WAI). The strength of the correlations of the AEDI scores with other independently validated measures of key aspects of early child development shows this teacher reported index to have robust construct and concurrent validity at ages 4-5 years and that it is predictive of children?s school learning and behavioural outcomes at age 6-7 years