America's Children: Key National Indicators of Well-Being, 2011

Indicator Needed

Education

Regular, periodic data collections are needed to provide information on young children's cognitive, social, and emotional development.

• Early childhood development. Although this report offers indicators of young children's exposure to reading and early childhood education, a regular source of data is needed to measure specific cognitive, emotional, and social skills of preschoolers over time. One assessment of kindergartners' skills and knowledge was presented as a special feature in America's Children, 2000. The Forum's Research and Innovation committee is working to strengthen our understanding of how to best conceptualize, define, and measure aspects of early childhood socioemotional development.