One-third of children in low- and middle-income countries fail to reach developmental milestones

In developing countries, one-third of children three and four years old don’t reach basic milestones in cognitive and/or socioemotional growth, according to a new study from Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, funded by the Government of Canada through Grand Challenges Canada.

The study authors estimate that 80.8 million of the roughly 240 million preschool-aged children in the world’s 132 low- and middle-income countries fail to develop a core set of age-appropriate skills that allow them to maintain attention, understand and follow simple directions, communicate and get along with others, control aggression, and solve progressively complex problems.

These early abilities are associated with subsequent development, mental and physical health, and ultimately, better learning in school and more productive lives as adults.

The study, published June 7, 2016, in PLOS Medicine, draws on data provided by the caregivers of almost 100,000 children living in 35 low- and middle-income countries between 2005 and 2015. The data were collected as part of UNICEF’s Multiple Indicator Cluster Survey program, Demographic and Health Surveys, and global data from the Nutrition Impact Model Study.

This is the first study to directly estimate the global extent of cognitive and/or socioemotional development deficits; earlier estimates of this unmet potential globally were based on proxy measures of development including poor physical growth and exposure to poverty.

The researchers found that among 3- and 4-year-olds in low- and middle-income countries, the problem is most acute in sub-Saharan Africa.