Mediating pathways in the socio-economic gradient of child development

Abstract

Research has previously shown a gap of near 0.5 of a standard deviation (SD) in cognition and language development between the top and bottom household wealth quartile in children aged 6–42 months in a large representative sample of low- and middle-income families in Bogota, using the Bayley Scales of Infant and Toddler Development. The gaps in fine motor and socio-emotional development were about half that size. Developmental deficits increased with age. The current study explored the associations amongst child development, household socio-economic status (SES), and a set of potential mediating variables—parental characteristics, child biomedical factors, and the quality of the home environment—in this sample. We ran mediation tests to quantify the contribution of these variables to the SES gap, and explored the role of age as a moderator. Parental education, particularly maternal education, and the quality of the home environment mediated the SES gap in all outcomes examined. Height-for-age mediated a small amount of the deficit in language scales only. More educated mothers provided better home stimulation than less educated mothers and the home environment partly mediated the effect of maternal education. These results suggested that in interventions aimed at promoting child development, those focusing on the quality of the home environment should be effective.

Developmental delay in the Amazon: The social determinants and prevalence among rural communities in Peru

“…This is consistent with our hypothesis that because the state of malnutrition and sanitation is worse in the Amazon region, there is higher prevalence of developmental delay [21,22,30]. A study in Colombia found that the two most predictive indicators for cognitive and language development in children are maternal education and quality of home environment [19]. A study in Peru that compared ASQ scores to socioeconomic indicators on early child development also found that early child development (ASQ scores) was significantly impacted by household wealth and maternal education (p<0.01 and p<0.05) [10].…”

“…The ASQ has been validated as an effective assessment tool for developmental delay in a wide-range of contexts and is significantly less time consuming and more inexpensive to administer [17]. The ASQ is a feasible evaluation tool for large scale deployments for prevalence studies and program [10,14,18,19]. The ASQ has been validated for test-retest in Spanish, including in the context of the Amazon of Peru, and found reliability scores of .80-.85 (differing by section)[18].…”

Los primeros años de vida de los niños peruanos: Una fotografía sobre el bienestar y el desarrollo de los niños del Programa Nacional Cuna Más

“…ed.). Una mayor asociación entre educación de la madre y desarrollo infantil -con valores de entre 0,12 y 0,17 para el SAF y entre 0,05 a 0,11 para el SCD-que entre educación del padre y desarrollo infantil -con valores de entre 0,07 y 0,12 para el SAF y entre 0,05 y 0,08 para el SCD-también ha sido documentada con anterioridad (Schady, 2011;Hamadani et al, 2014;Rubio-Codina, Attanasio y Grantham McGregor, 2016b).…”

“…En particular, las correlaciones entre materiales de juego según uso y, especialmente, entre actividades de juego y desarrollo infantil, son de mayor magnitud que las observadas entre desarrollo infantil y educación de la madre o nivel de riqueza del hogar. Esto guarda coherencia con el importante rol mediador que cumple el nivel de estimulación en el entorno para el desarrollo infantil (Walker et al, 2011;Hamadani et al, 2014;Rubio-Codina, Attanasio y Grantham McGregor, 2016b).…”

“…Al mismo tiempo, se ha documentado la existencia de factores protectores que median para mitigar los efectos de la adversidad en el desarrollo infantil; entre ellos, la lactancia, la educación materna, así como la exposición a interacciones de mayor calidad y a entornos de aprendizaje estimulantes y ricos en vocabulario (Walker et al, 2011;Rubio-Codina, Attanasio y Grantham-McGregor, 2016b). En consecuencia, el acceso a servicios de desarrollo infantil de calidad, focalizados en poblaciones muy vulnerables, tienen el potencial de reducir el tamaño de la brecha socioeconómica en el desarrollo desde los primeros años de vida (Engle et al, 2011).…”