Projects
Consortium for Research on Early Childhood Development and Education (CORE)
ECDAS
Project Period
Team Members
Prof RAO, Nirmala
Project Information
Early Childhood Developmental Assessment Scales
Assessment of progress towards UN Sustainable Development Goal 4 requires measurement of the proportion of children aged 24 to 59 months who are developmentally on track in health, learning, and psychosocial well-being (Indicator 4.2.1).
We developed the Developmentally on Track Assessment Scale and Caregiver Survey (Rao, Chan, Lee, & Becher (2020a), the Early Childhood Development Assessment Scale-Direct Assessment (ECDAS-DA) (Rao, Chan, Lee, & Becher, 2020b), and the Early Childhood Development Assessment Scale-Caregiver Survey (ECDAS-CS) (Rao, Chan, Lee, & Becher, 2020c). These three tools are closely aligned to UNICEF’s recently released ECDI2030 and may be used to measure ECD in Asia.
We piloted these tools in four countries (Bangladesh, China, India, and Myanmar) that contain 39 percent of the world’s population. In terms of population size, China and India rank 1st and 2nd in the world, with Bangladesh and Myanmar ranking 8th and 26th, respectively. The ECDAS-DA was administered to 510 children aged 36- to 59-months from Bangladesh, China, India, and Myanmar. Their caregivers were surveyed using the Early Childhood Development Assessment Scale-Caregiver Survey (ECDAS-CS). ECDAS-DA scores associated with age, ECDAS-CS, maternal education, and family wealth. They showed more variability by age and provided more fine-grained analyses of emerging developmental competencies than ECDAS-CS. Given the dearth of pan-culturally appropriate tools, ECDAS-DA can be deployed in longitudinal studies and impact evaluations in low- and middle- income countries.
Sample ECDAS-DA items for the four contexts:
ECD9. Names common objects
ECD10. Identifies letters of the akshara alphabet (Bengali, Hindi, Myanmar)/characters (China)
We are currently in the process of finalizing an iPad App to assist administration of the tool.
Published articles
- Richards, B., Rao, N., & Chan, S. W. Y. (2023). Measuring sustainable development goal target 4.2.1: Approaches to assessing children’s developmental competence. Oxford Review of Education, 49(1), 69-92. https://doi.org/10.1080/03054985.2022.2093844
- Rao, N., Chan, S. W. Y., Su, Y., Richards, B., Cappa, C., de Castro, E. F., & Petrowski, N. (2022). Measuring “developmentally on track”: Comparing direct assessment and caregiver report of early childhood development in Bangladesh, China, India, and Myanmar. Early Education and Development, 33(6), 1013–1035. https://doi.org/10.1080/10409289.2021.1928446
- Chan, S. W. Y., & Rao, N. (2022). Relation between executive function and early language and literacy development in Bengali, Chinese, and Hindi. Reading and Writing, 35, 2341–2364. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11145-022-10285-3
Rao, N., Chan, S. W. Y., Lee, D., & Becher, Y. (2020a). Developmentally on track assessment scale and caregiver survey. Faculty of Education, The University of Hong Kong.
Rao, N., Chan, S. W. Y., Lee, D., & Becher, Y. (2020b). Early childhood development assessment scale – Direct assessment (ECDAS-DA). Faculty of Education, The University of Hong Kong.
Rao, N., Chan, S. W. Y., Lee, D., & Becher, Y. (2020c). Early childhood development assessment scale – Caregiver survey (ECDAS-CS). Faculty of Education, The University of Hong Kong.
Conference
- Chan, S. W. Y., Rao, N., & Wang, H. (2023). Development of executive functions, language and math skills in Chinese preschoolers. Poster presented at the Society for Research in Child Development Biennial Meeting, Salt Lake City, Utah, USA.
- Li, Z., Rao, N., & Chan, S. W. Y. (2023). Developmental status of young children in China: Findings from parent report and direct assessment. Poster presented at the Society for Research in Child Development Biennial Meeting, Salt Lake City, Utah, USA.
