Needs Assessment & Indicators

Whenever you plan to set up an Early Child Development (ECD) program, you should always start with a problem analysis. Assess the needs of the young children, the context in which they are living, and the existing ECD programs.

A thorough understanding of the problems and underlying causes will help in targeting the children most at risk and will allow appropriate goal and objective setting.

Assessment of the needs of young children

An assessment of the needs of young children provides you with an understanding of children's developmental status and condition in order to define the areas and groups which are most in need of attention. Integrated ECD is a complex concept which encompasses several aspects. A child's development during the early years consists of physical (both health and nutritional status) and motor development (gross and fine motor skills), psycho-social and emotional development (in terms of social relationships, culturally appropriate behavior, values, and self-esteem), and cognitive and language development.

Measuring the status of children requires indicators that capture the different aspects of integrated ECD. A single indicator will not be enough. Rather, it is increasingly common to work with a child profile in which various indicators are incorporated.

ECD is not only an integrated but also a continuous process which start in the prenatal phase and extends until the transition to primary school. Development needs and milestones of young children shift over the years and experiences can have a lasting impact. Experiences such as malnutrition or neglect in the very early years will influence a child's developmental status as a toddler and in later years.

The chart below shows that various aspects of development affect different phases of life.

Â	Physical development			Psycho-social and emotional development			Cognitive and language development
Â	Nutrition	Health	Gross & fine motor skills	Social skills & behavior	Values	Self-esteem
Prenatal - 1 year	Â	Â	Â	Â	Â	Â	Â
1-3 years	Â	Â	Â	Â	Â	Â	Â
3-6 years	Â	Â	Â	Â	Â	Â	Â
6-8 years	Â	Â	Â	Â	Â	Â	Â

Environmental factors

Assessments of child development can serve different purposes, each requiring unique indicators.

Types of assessments include:

• assessments for an overview of current child status
• assessments to support learning (e.g. by parent or teacher to see what type of activities the child is ready for; mostly informal)
• assessments for the identification of special needs (e.g. growth monitoring to identify malnourished children)
• assessments for program evaluation (to determine whether the program is effective in reaching its goals, or to compare alternative program models and approaches)
• assessments to monitor trends (e.g. assess the status of children within or across regions and over time)
• assessments for high-stake accountability (to hold individual students, teachers or project managers accountable)

Child development indicators

The choice of child development indicators is not without problems. International agreement on standard indicators has been reached only for indicators of health and nutritional status.

Although many instruments exist to measure the cognitive development of young children, none of them is accepted as a universal standard. Moreover, universal applicable standards might very well be irrelevant because of cultural differences. At the national level, however, there are more opportunities. For example, some countries have installed a nation-wide developmental test for entrance to primary school.

Nevertheless, it is important to try to obtain estimates of the cognitive, psycho-social and emotional condition of children. A survey that assesses a smaller but representative group of children can give insight in these aspects of child development.

The table below gives an indicative list of child development indicators that are commonly used. The most common and direct child development indicators are mainly related to survival, health and nutrition. Because nation-wide indicators for cognitive development are usually lacking, indirect indicators or proxies are often used. That means that the indicators do not directly measure the cognitive development but instead look at variables that are assumed to be related to it. Either as an effect (progress and performance in primary school is supposed to reflect to some degree the preparation of young children for primary school and learning) or as a cause (preschool enrollment is supposed to positively affect cognitive development).

Health indicators

• Infant mortality rate (number of infant deaths divided by number of births in a defined population)
• Child mortality rate (number of deaths of children under 5 years divided by total number of children under 5 years in a defined population)
• Morbidity rate
• Leading causes of death of young children
• Leading causes of morbidity of young children
• Immunization rates (polio, measles, TB, DPT)
• Oral Rehydration Thearpy (ORT) use rate

Less common are statistics about children affected by HIV/AIDS. Potential indicators:

• number and % of young children infected with HIV/AIDS
• number and % of pregnant women infected with HIV/AIDS
• number of children orphaned by AIDS
• number or children taking care of sick family members
• number of child-headed households

Nutrition indicators

• % of infants with low birth weight (under 2500 gram)
• % of children under five that are moderately malnourished; severely malnourished
• anthropometrical measures (weight-for-height, weight-for-age, height-for-age)
• arm circumference
• level of micronutrients (such as Vitamin A, iron or iodine deficiency)
• daily per capita calorie supply (as % of requirements)

Cognitive development: proxy indicators

• age-at-entry in first grade
• gross enrollment rate (number of children enrolled in primary school divided by the total number of children in the relevant age group)
• net enrollment rate (number of children in relevant age group enrolled in primary school divided by the total number of children in the relevant age group)
• primary school completion rate
• average years of schooling completed
• % of children reaching grade 5
• repetition rates
• drop-out rates
• preschool enrollment

Difficult to measure and mostly not registered:

• number of children with physical or mental disabilities
• number of children with emotional or behavioral problems
• number of children that are abused or neglected
• number of children involved in child labor

Sources

• L. Shepard, S.L. Kagan & E. Wurtz (1998), "Principles and Recommendations for Early Childhood Assessments", Goal 1 Early Childhood Assessments Research Group, Washington, DC: National Education Goals Panel