Australian Early Development Census

Conducted every 3 years, the Australian Early Development Census (AEDC) is the most comprehensive collection of its kind in the world. The information gained from the census helps to shape the future and wellbeing of our children by providing evidence to support education, health and community policy and planning.

The fifth AEDC data collection will take place from 4 May to 25 June 2021.

Previous AEDC national, state and community level data is available to access from the AEDC website.

The AEDC measures how children are developing as they transition into their first year of school based on 5 key areas known as domains.

The 5 AEDC domains are:

Each rectangular tile represents one of the 5 AEDC domains of child development: physical health and wellbeing, social competence, emotional maturity, language and cognitive skills (school-based) and communication skills and general knowledge.​

Using the AEDC data

AEDC results can be used by early childhood education and care services to:

• plan and support children's successful transition to school
• raise awareness of the importance of children's early years
• support programming, planning (PDF, 418KB) and quality improvement (PDF, 616KB)​​ at early childhood education and care centre-based services
• implement programs and services for children in the community to support early child development
• act as a platform to form collaborative community partnerships.

The department has worked with Early Childhood Australia to create resources for early childhood education and care services; and also worked with the Telethon Kids Institute and the University of Queensland to develop a suite of AEDC resources tailored to the needs of schools.

A range of other resources, including fact sheets, community stories and guidance on understanding and using the data, is also available on the national AEDC website.​

More information

​Access the collection of resources to help ECEC services and schools understand their AEDC data and how it can be used to inform curriculum programming, planning and quality improvement.

Available on The Learning Place is the professional development package – teaching in kindy: linking the AEDC and Queensland kindergarten learning guideline, developed for kindergarten teachers working in an early childhood setting in the Queensland context.