Early Development Instrument (EDI)
The Early Development Instrument (EDI) is a survey that measures readiness for school and identifies vulnerability and developmental progress across 5 domains, and several subdomains, including physical health and well-being, social competence, emotional maturity, language and cognitive development, and communication skills and general knowledge. The survey is completed by teachers of each child in their Senior Kindergarten classrooms (ages 5 – 6) as a representative subset of schools from all school boards across Ontario.
Source:
Produced by the Offord Centre for Child Studies at McMaster University and disseminated and supported by Early Years Division, Ontario Ministry of Education
Data Notes:
- Participation in the EDI is not universal across Ontario school board and political boundaries, and therefore the provincial average may not be broadly representative of the total Ontario population. For example, Simcoe County did not participate in Cycle 3 of the Ontario EDI (2010-2012).
- The data provided to the health unit excludes special needs children, Indigenous children, and children attending private schools for senior kindergarten, or who are not enrolled in senior kindergarten.
- EDI provides a snapshot of child development and readiness for school. While patterns may emerge in the EDI results, it cannot be used to determine causal associations.
- The EDI survey has been administered in Ontario on a three-year cycle, in 2004-2006, 2007-2009, 2010-2012, 2015 and 2017-2018 school years. Data are collected in February/March. Cycle 6 data collection, originally scheduled for 2021, was collected in 2023 for the 2022-23 school year due to the COVID-19 pandemic. In addition, EDI questionnaires completed in 2023 were done so later in the school year than previous EDI cycles, so the Cycle VI cohort is slightly older than previous cohorts.
- Children are assigned to each jurisdiction (Simcoe County or Muskoka District) based on their home postal code (and not based on their school postal code).
- For an EDI survey to be used in the analysis, the child or teacher must be in the class for at least one month prior to completion and the teacher must complete approximately 75% of the survey.
- Health unit analysis relies on summary reports compiled by the Offord Centre and distributed to the health unit by Simcoe County and the District of Muskoka.
Data Used in the Following Dashboards:
