by Elif Gorkey

Early childhood is inarguably one of the most precious parts of our lives. We are creative, curious, optimistic, accepting… but also highly vulnerable. Early childhood is when we become more aware of ourselves and our surroundings, and if our surroundings are harmful, they can have lasting effects. In this important stage, our genes and environment begin to shape our personality, our views, and even have a tremendous effect on our future. This is why, aside from obvious ethical reasons, childhood must be handled with care. This post will focus particularly on the development of emotional maturity during childhood and its effects on academic achievement.

EDI

The Early Development Instrument (EDI), found by the Human Early Learning Program (HELP), is a Canadian found instrument that studies the states of development in children. This publicly available instrument allows access to vulnerability rates of children in each province, city, and neighborhood in Canada, according to the five separate scales of development it studies.

These five scales are:

  • emotional maturity
  • social competence
  • language and cognitive skills
  • physical health and well-being
  • communication skills.

Each of these five scales are then studied in terms of their domain, ideal development, signs of vulnerability, and possible outcomes. With the help of EDI, HELP is able to determine who is at risk on which scale to improve assistance.

Emotional Maturity & Vulnerability

This post’s scale of interest, emotional maturity, focuses on a child’s emotional development in terms of their behavior, emotion management, and appropriate response/approach to unique circumstances. HELP identifies four subscales for emotional maturity.

These four subscales are:

  • aggressive behavior
  • anxious & fearful behavior
  • hyperactive & inattentive behavior
  • prosocial & helping behavior

These subscales allow a closer look into the causes, treatments, and possible outcomes. The latter, prosocial & helping behavior, can be held as the ideal outcome. A child’s ability to respond rationally, have a better grasp of their emotions, and show support to those in need can be promoted by positive role models and resilience (ability to process and cope with negative experiences). The mind-map below shows the possible outcomes if a child exhibiting signs of the first three subscales does not receive any support or intervention:

How to Help

As someone who relates to the anxious & fearful subscale a little too much, I can confirm that the “possible future outcomes” are embarrassingly accurate. Not only can these traits cause issues in personal life, but in academic performance as well. So, is there a way to prevent this?

There are many programs and interventions to assist caregivers and educators in promoting healthy development for the children in their lives. A program I have found much interest in is one held in Spain, regarding how much emotional development can impact students in their academic life and how it can be treated.

The EDI program promotes resilience by teaching children how to understand and express their emotions through a series of highly beneficial activities for their developing brains. This program is an intervention program targeted specifically toward promoting academic achievement through improved emotional intelligence for children. Conducted by María-José Cantero, Raquel Bañus, and Paz Viguer, the study was aimed at 10-12-year-olds in Spain in two years. The EDI program took place during homeroom time and consisted of a fictional character named EDI and their journey through emotion through four
modules: intrapersonal skills, interpersonal skills, emotion regulation, and general mood (p.12).

Children were taught to recognize and apply emotions in everyday life. The writers, and conductors of the program, describe their process as “a comprehensive approach that includes experiential methodology with psychophysical, psychodrama, and systemic techniques, as well as some cognitive-behavioral techniques. The structure of the intervention
was based on techniques such as film forum, storytelling, drama, group discussion, case studies, relaxation, and music therapy. We also used techniques such as empathic stimulation, active listening, positive reinforcement, and modeling to strengthen learning.” (p. 12). The aim of the program was to see if improvement in emotional intelligence would also improve academic intelligence. According to the received data, students who attended the program scored better in language and mathematics compared to the students who didn’t participate.

What piqued my interest in this study were my own troubles with emotion regulation and how they affected my academic life. Something as simple as having a reading break before a class to help me gather my thoughts has always been helpful, a skill I have learned perhaps a little too late for it to stick. Even in BC, the EDI provincial report shows an intriguing Wave 7 (2016 – 2019) report. Comparing Lonsdale (North Vancouver) and James Bay (Greater Victoria), the emotional vulnerability scale appears to be a little higher than average in James Bay (James Bay 21%, average in Greater Victoria 17.7%); while Lonsdale has the highest vulnerability rate compared to the rest of the neighborhoods in North Vancouver with a 36% vulnerability in a 33.4% average.

References:

Bañuls, R., Cantero, M. J. & Viguer, P. (2020 October 19). Effectiveness of an Emotional Intelligence Intervention and Its Impact on Academic Performance in Spanish PreAdolescent Elementary Students: Results from the EDI Program. PubMed Central. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7588891/

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