Study Overview
This paper is the third in the Child Development Series. The first paper showed that more than 200 million children under 5 years of age in developing countries do not reach their developmental potential. The second paper identified four well-documented risks: stunting, iodine deficiency, iron deficiency anaemia, and inadequate cognitive stimulation, plus four potential risks based on epidemiological evidence: maternal depression, violence exposure, environmental contamination, and malaria. This paper assesses strategies to promote child development and to prevent or ameliorate the loss of developmental potential. The most effective early child development programmes provide direct learning experiences to children and families, are targeted toward younger and disadvantaged children, are of longer duration, high quality, and high intensity, and are integrated with family support, health, nutrition, or educational systems and services. Despite convincing evidence, programme coverage is low. To achieve the Millennium Development Goals of reducing poverty and ensuring primary school completion for both girls and boys, governments and civil society should consider expanding high quality, cost-effective early child development programmes.
Study Results
Effective interventions are available to reduce the developmental loss currently estimated to aff ect more than 200 million children under 5 years of age in developing countries, by promoting child development and preventing or ameliorating developmental loss. The most effective interventions are comprehensive programmes for younger and disadvantaged children and families that are of adequate duration, intensity, quality, and are integrated with health and nutrition services. Providing services directly to children and including an active parenting and skill-building component is a more effective strategy than providing information alone
Intervention: Cost-effective early child development programs