The report details the fourth national collection of the Australian Early Development Census, which brings the total number of children who have participated in the collections to over 1.2 million.
Some key findings from the 2018 collection include:
- A decrease in the percentage of children vulnerable on one or more domains of development, from 23.6% in 2009 to 21.7% in 2018.
- An increasing gap in vulnerability between children living in the most disadvantaged areas relative to those from the least disadvantaged across all five domains.
- A decreasing gap in vulnerability between children from very remote communities relative to those from major cities on social and emotional domains, but increasing on all others.
