Introduction to special issue on global child development studies

Abstract

As global child development research is taking off, this special issue provides a collection of recent research characterizing child development across the globe, validating behavioral and neuroimaging tools across diverse geographical setting and cultures, exploring relationships between risk and protective factors and diverse child outcomes, and testing novel avenues of innovative intervention. In particular, three prominent themes that emerge from this special issue are (a) research linking biology and behavior in the service of uncovering biological systems that are susceptible to experience and may mediate associations between experiences and long‐term developmental outcomes in global child development research, (b) a movement towards inclusion of more detailed investigation of children's socio‐emotional functions in global child development research, and (c) longitudinal studies of developmental outcomes across global settings. In this introduction we outline key themes and findings from the 25 articles included in the special issue.

Associations of socioeconomic and other environmental factors with early brain development in Bangladeshi infants and children

“…Emerging evidence from longitudinal research suggests that socioeconomic disparities in child development emerge sometime during the first two years of children’s life. For example, using data from Bangladesh we have previously shown a pattern whereby children perform as expected with regards to developmental milestones at 6 months, but have dropped significantly at 27 months ( Jensen et al, 2019b ). We have also shown that poverty predicts child outcomes via exposure to risks such as poor growth, inflammation, and playful parenting from 27 months onwards, while only playful parenting showed an association with milestone related to language at 6 months ( Jensen et al, 2019c ).…”

“…Environmental influences on child development are well-known and behavioral studies from throughout the world show that children living in impoverished circumstances tend to reach developmental milestones later than children living in wealthier families. Indeed, a large body of literature from both high and low-income countries has shown that children in poor households perform less well on measures of cognitive functions and language compared with wealthier peers ( Jensen et al, 2019b , c ; Johnson et al, 2016 ; Rubio-Codina and Grantham-McGregor, 2019 ). Emerging evidence from longitudinal research suggests that socioeconomic disparities in child development emerge sometime during the first two years of children’s life.…”

“…We also hypothesize that the associations of household wealth with EEG power will be partially accounted for by maternal stress and family caregiving activities. We add to the current literature by having recruited a unique sample of infants and children from an urban slum area in Bangladesh - a population that continues to be significantly underrepresented in neurodevelopmental research ( Jensen et al, 2019b ). We use EEG to assess possible objective neurological correlates of early life experiences in a low-income country where poverty and related adverse exposures are prevalent.…”

Sanitation, Hygiene and Environmental Cleanliness for Child Development

“…Many factors play a role in supporting children to thrive. Child development is influenced and affected by a complex interplay of environmental and biological elements, including genetic, educational, socio-cultural, and living environment factors (Jensen et al 2019). It is primarily in the nexus between children and their environments that WASH plays an important role.…”

Combining Wearable Devices and Mobile Surveys to Study Child and Youth Development in Malawi: Implementation Study of a Multimodal Approach

“…Panel studies in developing countries typically employ face-to-face data collection (ie, traditional survey instruments), which happens at a low frequency [12,13]. The Demographic and Health Survey, for instance, is updated only every 3 to 5 years.…”