The program that's kick starting the learning of young children.

Broadcast: 11/05/2007

Reporter: Elvira Nuic

REBECCA CARMODY: Four years ago, a major Perth study revealed one in four children begin their schooling with some kind of developmental problem.

The results so alarmed two Perth communities, they set about investigating why they fared so badly. What resulted was an early intervention program aimed at kick starting a child's learning and now a new round of testing appears to have proven its success. Elvira Nuic reports.

FIONA STANLEY, INSTITUTE FOR CHILD HEALTH RESEARCH: It illustrates the adage: It takes a village to raise a child. What we've shown to them that their village wasn't doing that well and what they've done is respond with a very community oriented set of activities that are enabling parents, galvanising the schools, and it has been dramatic.

ELVIRA NUIC: Four years ago, Perth piloted a groundbreaking survey to measure the development of its 5 year olds. The results were alarming. One in four children were entering school with at least one development problem.

A struggle for them and some of them will actually frankly possibly continue on a path in which they won't do well.

The children were tested using the Early Development Index which looks at five key areas: a child's physical health, social knowledge, emotional maturity, language and communication skills.

Wembley and Floreat were surprisingly two of the worst performers. 47% of children in Floreat and 42% in Wembley were classified as vulnerable in at least one area.

LINDA KNOX, WEMBLEY PRIMARY SCHOOL: It was a bit of a concern for us to see that children in this area had vulnerabilities in this area, but we just saw that as an opportunity to do something with the community.

ELVIRA NUIC: Then after three years of intervention, the test was repeated, and the results are now in.

FIONA STANLEY: There was a great improvement, so now we've been able to ask why that happened and have been able to look at the programs that the community developed because they were so unhappy about the fact that they came up with these results.

ELVIRA NUIC: In the latest round of testing, the number of vulnerable children in Floreat dropped to 14% and 12% in Wembley.

FIONA STANLEY: The ADI was a tool to show that things weren't right in these particular areas. The community responded with what it felt were the important things for its community, and they've come up with this spectacular result. That possibly is all you need to do.

ELVIRA NUIC: The Wembley Primary School set up an intervention program after meeting with parents to work out why the community was raising less well rounded children.

A look at existing services revealed there was no playgroup in the area, nowhere for parents to socialise with other families. Establishing this early years playing and reading group is all it took to dramatically improve the development of Wembley's youngest.

LINDA RADICH: Our little boy has some areas of problems with gross motor movement, and by coming to these sessions we were able to identify that that was a problem

From my perspective, it is a wonderful way of identifying how your children should be developing and what they should be doing. Excuse the baby (baby cries) before they go to kindy.

LINDA KNOX: I suppose it's about empowering the parents to know that really they play a very critical role in their child's education and it's not just the school that is responsible for it.

It's about building a partnership.

FIONA STANLEY: What's your puppet? I hope you're not making me wear a moustache like Joshua!

ELVIRA NUIC: Fiona Stanley is the former Australian of the Year and director of the Telethon Research Institute.

She is also responsible for bringing the Early Development Index to Australia. She says the Wembley program worked because it helped identify problems in children before they reached school and, more importantly, educated parents about parenting.

FIONA STANLEY: Well, the parents had to actually be with the kids on the floor, doing things with them, interacting with them and being shown how to be an interactive parent. So that has had a dramatic effect on the next generation of kids coming through.

MARIE YUNCKEN, OCCUPATIONAL THERAPIST: There is always a percentage in a big group like this who will have some difficulties with what they're doing. It's not to say they won't get there in the end but it means we can teach the parents to do the things at home to help their children along.

ELVIRA NUIC: The Federal Government announced a $3.7 million funding boost in this week's budget to roll out the index to more communities and create an EDI for Aboriginal children.

Fiona Stanley says much more is needed for her vision to be realised. She wants to conduct the first ever sense suss of Australian children, providing a snapshot of how well every community is raising its kids.

FIONA STANLEY: The ADI project, if we could roll it out for the whole nation, we would have a GDP said our economy is OK and we would have ADI which said that our kids and our future was OK. To me that would be the ideal outcome of this whole project.

ELVIRA NUIC: Currently, Australia spends less than any other OECD country on early child hood policies.

Fiona Stanley says if communities knew in which areas their children were vulnerable, it would empower them to do something about it, tailor programs to suit their needs. Fixing the problem could be as simple as a local playgroup.

FIONA STANLEY: It would be fantastic. It would actually make the future capacity of this country really much more secure. That's not to say we wouldn't still have problems.

It would just be we would be dealing with a vast majority of children who had optimal development and then could participate in Australian society in the future. That's how important this stuff is.

If you look at investment in education by age, we haven't got it right.