by Paniz Javady Shishavan

The Early Development Instrument (EDI)

The Early Development Instrument (EDI) is a questionnaire created for teachers to observe and gather data about Kindergarten age children, and their different levels and areas of development. As stated in The Human Early Learning Partnership EDI BC website, British Columbia has been gathering data since 2001, and this data is used to understand five different areas of development in the last years of the early childhood age. The five EDI scales are: physical health and well being, social competence, emotional maturity, language and cognitive development, communication skills and general knowledge. The data from these results allows researchers to further investigate childhood and adulthood outcomes (HELP, 2019).

Social Competence Scale

This scale measures overall social competence, demonstrating respect and responsibility, new approaches to learning, and willingness to explore and try new things (HELP, 2019). Children who show vulnerable signs in this scale are more likely to have problems getting along with other children and have difficulties following day to day rules (HELP,  2019). Vulnerability in this scale has had a significant increase from wave 2 (2004-2007) to wave 6 (2013-2016).  

Environmental & Genetic Influences

Research has found that parents who have a more positive outlook on life, even during times of financial stress,  their children are also more likely to have a positive outlook (Jeon, S., & Neppl, T. K. (2019). The same applied for mothers who were struggling financially,  but were still optimistic and portrayed positive parenting skills. This had a positive impact on the child’s social competence. It is also predicted that parenting styles that are warm and supportive, will pass on social competence to their children (Jeon, S., & Neppl, T. K. (2019). As children naturally adapt to their parents’ attitudes and mechanisms, they account for a large part of the child’s environmental influence.

However, genetics also influence children’s social competence in the way that parenting styles are also genetic. It is more likely that a child with biological/birth parents who have low social competence will also pass that onto their children. Adoptive parents with high levels of sociability and sensitivity will result in normal levels of social competence, regardless of the child’s birth parent. Research results showed that adoptive parents did not play a big role in child social competence whereas the birth parents’ sociability did influence the child’s sociability (Van Ryzin et al., 2015).

As genetics influence parenting styles, which then influences the environment that children grow up in, this ties in genetic and environmental factors and makes them equally as important. Another environmental influence that can lead to vulnerability in social competence is whether a child is raised in a single family home or with both parents and siblings. Another genetic influence is whether or not the parents themselves are sociable and have low social competence, then this will too pass onto the child.

Social Competence Vulnerability in North Vancouver

Taking a look at the School District of North Vancouver, and more specifically the residents in the Deep Cove/Dollarton neighbourhood, there is a total population of 10,430 and the population for children from 0-5 make up for 601. According to the ED Data from the Wave 7 Report, 13% of children in SD44 showed vulnerability in social competence, and the average for the province is 16%. From wave 6 to wave 7, the vulnerability level in SD44 has stayed stable for SD44. From wave 6 to wave 7, the vulnerability level in Deep Cove/Dollarton has had a meaningful decrease (HELP, 2019).

Try PATHS

 The use of an intervention method called Preschool Promoting Alternative Thinking Strategies (PATHS) can be used to effectively help children aged 3-6 with their overall social competence,  approaches to learning, and respect and responsibility. This program focuses on four different categories: (1) friendship and social skills (2) emotional knowledge (3) self control and lastly (4) problem solving (Bilir Seyhan et al,. 2019). PATHS uses a few different scales and questionnaires to measure how students pay attention, follow rules, handle situations, and measure their overall social competence. The same is also done for the teachers to see how they manage and interact with the students. This intervention consists of 33 short lessons that go over the school’s curriculum, and are divided into topics for each lesson; these lessons consist of stories, illustrations, puppets and skill instruction (the same teaching curriculum is used). The final results of the research demonstrated that the children who were in the intervention group versus the comparison group had shown significant improvements in being less disruptive, better communication skills, and  improvement in problem solving. In terms of the social and emotional competence, the children of the intervention group had higher results than the comparison group (Bilir Seyhan et al,. 2019).  This is due to the fact that the materials used and taught in each lesson, make up for a large portion of these children’s knowledge, awareness and skills.

References

Bilir Seyhan, G., Ocak Karabay, S., Arda Tuncdemir, T. B., Greenberg, M. T., & Domitrovich, C. (2019). The effects of Promoting Alternative Thinking Strategies Preschool Program on teacher–children relationships and children’s social competence in Turkey. International Journal of Psychology, 54(1), 61–69.

Human Early Learning Partnership. EDI BC. Early Development Instrument British Columbia, 2016-2019 Wave 7 provincial report. Vancouver, BC: University of British Columbia, Faculty of Medicine, School of Population and Public Health; 2019 Nov. Available from: http://earlylearning.ubc.ca/media/edibc_ wave7_2019_provincialreport.pdf

Human Early Learning Partnership. Early Development Instrument [EDI] report. Wave 7 Community Profile, 2019. North Vancouver School District (SD44). Vancouver, BC: University of British Columbia, Faculty of Medicine, School of Population and Public Health; February 2020. Available from: http://earlylearning.ubc.ca/media/edi_w7_ communityprofiles/edi_w7_communityprofile_sd_44.pdf

Jeon, S., & Neppl, T. K. (2019). Economic Pressure, Parent Positivity, Positive Parenting, and Child Social Competence. Journal of Child & Family Studies, 28(5), 1402–1412. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10826-019-01372-1

Van Ryzin, M. J., Leve, L. D., Neiderhiser, J. M., Shaw, D. S., Natsuaki, M. N., & Reiss, D. (2015). Genetic influences can protect against unresponsive parenting in the prediction of child social competence. Child Development, 86(3), 667–680. https://doi.org/10.1111/cdev.12335