Has a National Policy Focus on Early Childhood Made a Difference for Indigenous Children? An Analysis of LSAC Data

Margaret Sims,Huy P Phan

doi:10.1007/2288-6729-7-2-33

Abstract

Abstract The Australian policy environment has undergone significant changes with a move towards evidence-based policy development. It is in this climate that the Longitudinal Study of Australian Children (LSAC) began collecting data. The study began in 2003 with 2 cohorts of children (birth-1 year and 4–5 years) and the 5th wave of data collection occurred in 2011/12. In this analysis we use the data from the first wave of data (collected in the 6 months between August 2003 and March 2004) and the third wave, collected in the 9 months between July 2007 and April 2008. This latter was a time when a range of initiatives addressing Indigenous disadvantage through early childhood interventions had been in operation for some time: both early childhood and Indigenous policy was strongly focused on the quality of early childhood service provision, with a strong focus on evidence-based service development. In this paper we present a comparison of outcomes for Indigenous and non-indigenous Australian children who have grown up in these 2 different policy eras.

Highlights

Ten years ago the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) pointed out that Australia lacked the necessary research in early childhood needed to drive the development of effective policy (Ishimine, Tayler, & Thorpe, 2009).International research, whilst useful, these authors claimed, does not provide sufficient or valid evidence upon which to base policy development in the Australian context
The development of Indigenous policy was, for many years, based on values and beliefs which assumed that the best outcome for Indigenous Australians was complete assimilation (Sims, 1999)
The focus of this study, entailing an empirical examination of two cohorts of children, addressed three major questions: (i) is there a statistical significant difference between the two cohorts (B versus K) in the PPVT and WAI tests?, (ii) is there a change in the PPVT, in particular, over the course of time for the K cohort?, and (iii) do indigenous and non-indigenous children differ in the PPVT and WAI test scores?

Summary

Introduction

Ten years ago the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) pointed out that Australia lacked the necessary research in early childhood needed to drive the development of effective policy (Ishimine, Tayler, & Thorpe, 2009). Childhood and Indigenous policy initiatives have come to share many understandings over this time with a growing recognition around the world that the early years of life play a significant part in shaping adult outcomes Such evidence arises from longitudinal studies but from epigenetic research where the impact of the environment is tracked to the genomic level (Sims, 2011b; Sims & Hutchins, 2011). The Australian Early Development Index is a tool that collects population level data on children‘s outcomes taken as they begin their first year at school It consists of a checklist completed by the teacher measuring physical health and wellbeing, social competence, emotional maturity, language and cognitive skills The Mauchly‘s test, in contrast, revealed that the sphericity assumption was violated, and we used the Huynh-Feldt correction method

Is there a change in the PPVT scores over the three waves of data?

Results

Discussion

This is funded by the Australian Government