Evidence suggests that socio-emotional skills, such as empathy and emotional regulation, play an important role in life outcomes, but little evidence exists on the impact of teaching these skills to very young children. In Colombia, researchers are evaluating how an early childhood curriculum with a socio-emotional focus impacts children’s competencies in empathy, inclusion, compassion, problem-solving, critical thinking, collaboration, emotional regulation, generosity, and advocating and car
Household food security, defined as stable access to sufficient and nutritious food, is critical in the early years to meet a child’s developmental needs.
During the last few decades, there has been an increase in the number of children raised by their grandparents in the Northern Triangle in Central America—Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador—in response to family crises, poverty, disease epidemics, and migration. Many of these children are facing emotional and behavioral problems, complete fewer years of schooling, and have more problems related to school and learning.
In recent years, education systems in Latin America have significantly increased coverage for children in primary school. However, challenges related to early childhood education remain. In Uruguay, student absenteeism at preschool is high in comparison to primary school, and this may be due in part to parents undervaluing preschool education.
How do standard development programs compare to just giving people cash?
Poor nutrition and exposure to fecal contamination are associated with diarrhea and growth faltering, and both have long-term consequences for child health and development. In Kenya, researchers partnered with IPA to conduct a large-scale randomized evaluation of the impacts of water, sanitation, handwashing, and nutrition interventions delivered alone and in combination.
Around the world, studies show that children’s health and cognitive development tend to be higher when parents have more education. However, it is unclear whether education itself causes improved child health, or if other factors account for this relationship.
As in many other developing countries, children under the age of five in rural Ghana often fail to reach their developmental potential. Researchers partnered with the Institute for Fiscal Studies and the organization Lively Minds to evaluate the impact of a low-cost, play-based learning program on early childhood cognitive development.
Throughout Sub-Saharan Africa, early literacy remains very low, and existing interventions have not proven to be cost-effective.1 Children from rural areas are particularly at risk for below-average literacy skills due to a lack of age-appropriate literary resources, low rates of caregiver literacy, and low levels of teacher support.
Although enrollment and access to education has increased across sub-Saharan Africa, student learning remains low. Educators and policymakers want to strengthen teacher training in order to improve student learning, but evidence is lacking about what makes teacher training most effective, especially in early childhood education.
Inadequate nutrition during the earliest years of life can cause stunting and contribute to long-term developmental consequences that can affect future productivity and well-being. In Zambia, an IPA research team found that providing parents with full-sized growth charts, which included information about nutrition and were placed on the walls inside homes, reduced stunting rates among malnourished children by 22 percentage points.
Many students arrive at primary school without the educational experiences that support the skills needed to succeed in school. This can compromise students’ long-term learning and school success. One way to address this issue is through high quality pre-primary education. In the Greater Accra Region of Ghana, where enrollment in pre-primary education is high, researchers evaluated the impact of an affordable, in-service kindergarten teacher training.
Intestinal worm infections are among the world’s most widespread diseases, with roughly one in four people infected worldwide. Research has shown that when children are treated with deworming medication, worm infections become less prevalent not only for children who received the medication, but for those who live in the same environment as treated children.
Child stunting has been associated with exposure to aflatoxin, a toxin produced by a fungus that affects crops such as maize, groundnuts, and sorghum. However, the causal relationship between aflatoxin exposure and height-for-age child growth has not been demonstrated.
Despite an increased international interest in child development, representative data on child development is still remarkably scarce, particularly from Sub-Saharan Africa.
