Special Skills/Special Problems/Group Comparisons

The EDI asks questions about any special problems that a child may have. More
specifically, the EDI asks if a child has a physical disability, visual impairment,
hearing impairment, speech impairment, learning disability, emotional problem,
behavioural problem, problems at home and/or other problems. Please note that
a teacher may recognize that a child has special problems but if the child has not
been formally identified as a special needs child then for the purposes of the EDI,
the child is not considered special needs and thus their EDI is not put into the
special needs analysis. The results indicate that children in Ottawa have between
zero and five special problems with an average of 0.09 problems per child.
Overall, 5.9% of children had one of the above listed special problems. More
specifically, 2.1% of children had a speech impairment, 1.8% had a behavioural
problem and 1.3% had a problem at home. Additionally, teachers felt that 10.2%
of children needed further assessment.