Five-year-olds vulnerable in ghettos, and wealthy suburbs

POVERTY and unemployment are creating ghettos of under-achieving children on the fringes of Australia's big cities.

POVERTY and unemployment are creating ghettos of under-achieving children on the fringes of Australia's big cities, the first national census of five-year-olds reveals.

Kids growing up in suburbs with high unemployment and low income are generally falling behind in their physical, social and emotional development at twice the rate of children from elite inner-city enclaves.

But even in some silvertail suburbs, an alarming proportion of children who started school this year are "developmentally vulnerable", the Australian Early Development Index reveals.

In Perth's exclusive Peppermint Grove -- where the median family income of $2870 a week is more than double the national average and unemployment sits at 3 per cent -- 17.6 per cent of children are classified as vulnerable in at least one area of development.

Twelve per cent of five-year-olds are behind in their physical development, and 6 per cent are behind in terms of their emotional maturity, cognitive or communication skills.

In Melbourne's fringe region of Broadmeadows -- where the median family income is just $861 and the unemployment rate over 10 per cent -- 29.6 per cent of children are developmentally vulnerable, with 15 per cent found lacking in their communication skills and their social competence.

But indigenous children fare the worst, with up to half the Aboriginal children in remote regions classified as "developmentally vulnerable".

In the Northern Territory's remote Tennant Creek, where family income is half the national average, two-thirds of children are rated as vulnerable.

Only one in three children who started school in Tennant Creek this year has been rated as being "on track" in terms of physical development, and nearly half are vulnerable in terms of their communication skills.

Deputy Prime Minister Julia Gillard yesterday said Australians should be concerned about the results, with 23 per cent of children nationally judged "vulnerable" when they start school.

"What I think Australian parents and the Australian community intuitively knows is if you get at the back of the class early in your school life, it can be really hard to catch up later on," she said.

"We do know that the children most at risk of missing out are the children from the poorer backgrounds. Many of the problems in our community -- poor literacy, mental and physical health, unemployment, welfare dependency, criminality -- all of them have their origins much earlier in life."

Ms Gillard said the results would "shine a spotlight" on problem areas so governments and communities could intervene.

When five-year-old Ruby Nicholas starts school next year, she will most likely be one of 91 per cent of children her age in the affluent local government area of Willoughby -- which takes in parts of Roseville where she lives -- who have been judged to be on-track in their language and cognitive skills.

Almost 40 per cent of Willoughby's working population are professionals, and the unemployment rate sits significantly below the national average at 3.5 per cent.

Ruby's mother, Fiona Nicholas, said she felt privileged to have been able to stay at home to raise her three children.

"We have always read to our children, done arts and crafts and made sure that we have been doing things with them at an age-appropriate level," she said.