School readiness skills predict later educational achievement, health, and social-emotional outcomes. Measures of school readiness can provide valuable information to assess both the impact of strategies and policies that prepare children for school as well as informing strategies for improving children's educational trajectories across their school years. The Early Development Instrument (EDI) is a measure of school readiness skills based on teacher-reported observational recall. It has been used extensively in Canada and Australia and is in the early stages of adoption in a number of U.S. cities. The current study uses data from roughly 3,000 children followed longitudinally from kindergarten through third grade from 7 school districts in Orange County, California. The study assesses whether EDI ratings in kindergarten predict third grade proficiency in mathematics and English Language Arts on state assessments. Ratings on the EDI were strongly associated with proficiency in both academic areas, even in the presence of controls for child-level factors and neighborhood fixed effects. Among its components, ratings on the language and cognitive development, communication skills and general knowledge, and social competence domains strongly differentiated children's likelihood of later proficiency in both academic areas. Implications for improving comprehensive early childhood education and schooling policies based on indicators of school readiness are discussed.

Objectives

To examine relationships of residential crowding and commute time with early child development.

Methods

We used the Early Development Instrument (EDI), a teacher-reported, population-health measure of child development. The sample included child-level observations spanning 8 US states from 2010 to 2017 (n = 185 012), aggregated to the census tract (n= 2793), stratified by percentage of households in poverty. To test the association of commute times, crowding, and child development, we tested overall readiness and 5 EDI domains by using adjusted census tract-level multivariate regression with fixed effects.

Results

In the full sample, a 1-standard-deviation increase in crowding was associated with 0.064- and 0.084-point decreases in mean score for cognitive development and communication skills, respectively. For the high-poverty subsample, a 1-standard deviation increase in commute time was associated with 0.081- and 0.066-point decreases in social competence and emotional maturity.

Conclusions

In neighborhoods with increased crowding or commute time, early child development suffers.

Policy implications

This study suggests a potential relationship between the changing urban landscape and child health. Children would benefit from more multisector collaboration between urban planning and public health.