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. 2007 Jan 6;369(9555):60-70.
doi: 10.1016/S0140-6736(07)60032-4.

Developmental potential in the first 5 years for children in developing countries

Sally Grantham-McGregor  1 , Yin Bun Cheung, Santiago Cueto, Paul Glewwe, Linda Richter, Barbara Strupp; International Child Development Steering Group
Affiliations

Developmental potential in the first 5 years for children in developing countries

Sally Grantham-McGregor et al. Lancet. .

Abstract

Many children younger than 5 years in developing countries are exposed to multiple risks, including poverty, malnutrition, poor health, and unstimulating home environments, which detrimentally affect their cognitive, motor, and social-emotional development. There are few national statistics on the development of young children in developing countries. We therefore identified two factors with available worldwide data--the prevalence of early childhood stunting and the number of people living in absolute poverty--to use as indicators of poor development. We show that both indicators are closely associated with poor cognitive and educational performance in children and use them to estimate that over 200 million children under 5 years are not fulfilling their developmental potential. Most of these children live in south Asia and sub-Saharan Africa. These disadvantaged children are likely to do poorly in school and subsequently have low incomes, high fertility, and provide poor care for their children, thus contributing to the intergenerational transmission of poverty.

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Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Human brain development Reproduced with permission of authors and American Psychological Association (Thompson RA, Nelson CA. Developmental science and the media: early brain development. Am Psychol 2001; 56: 5–15).
Figure 2
Figure 2
Hypothesised relations between poverty, stunting, child development, and school achievement
Figure 3
Figure 3
Vocabulary scores of Ecuadorian children aged 36 to 72 months by wealth quartiles TVIP=Test de Vacabulario en Imagenes Peabody. Reproduced with permission from the authors.
Figure 4
Figure 4
Regional distribution of the number of children under 5 years in millions (A) stunted, (B) living in poverty, and (C) disadvantaged (either stunted, living in poverty, or both) in year 2004.
Figure 5
Figure 5
Percentage of disadvantaged children under 5 years by country in year 2004
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Comment in

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