Factors affecting child development and executive functioning in three low income counties

Session Type: Paper Symposium

Abstract

Children in low and middle income countries (LMIC) face multiple risks to healthy development. This symposium brings together four research papers examining child development in Rwanda, Ghana and Pakistan. We explore predictors of child development and executive functions including the home environment, caregiver mental health, family composition, food insecurity, and family violence. Early developmental milestones and executive functions are central to child learning and long-term school readiness. Understanding factors and pathways affecting child development in LMIC should future interventions to support child development globally. The first presentation will examine a widely used tool for measuring the quality of home environments and stimulation, namely the Home Observation for the Measurement of the Environment (HOME). We will explore psychometric properties of the HOME scale in a longitudinal dataset from a parenting intervention trial in rural Rwanda, and make recommendations for using HOME in LMIC. The second presentation will use data from the same parenting trial to examine mechanistic pathways underlying intervention effects related to children’s developmental milestones, focusing on caregiver’s mental health. The third presentation will use data from Pakistan to investigate the role of siblings on the development of children’s executive functions and examine whether links between the number of older siblings and four-year-olds’ executive functions are moderated by children’s gender and the quality of home stimulation. Finally, the fourth presentation will use data collected in Ghana to examines the role of cumulative risk on literacy and numeracy skills and whether such associations are mediated by executive functions.

Sub Unit

• Solicited Content: Global South

Chair

• Sarah Jensen, Boston College

Individual Presentations

• Measuring Parenting in Sub-Saharan Africa: HOME Inventory dimensionality assessment, IRT calibration, and scale validation - Presenting Author: Matias L. Placencio-Castro, Boston College; Non-Presenting Author: Sarah Jensen, Boston College; Non-Presenting Author: Amanda Stroiman, Boston College; Non-Presenting Author: Shauna M Murray, Boston College; Non-Presenting Author: Robert T Brennan, Research Program for Children and Adversity at Boston College; Non-Presenting Author: Theresa Stichick Betancourt, Boston College

• Mechanistic effects of a Family Strengthening Intervention on child outcomes in Rwanda - the roles of caregiver mental health - Presenting Author: Sarah Jensen, Boston College; Non-Presenting Author: Matias L. Placencio-Castro, Boston College; Non-Presenting Author: Jordan Farrar, Boston College; Non-Presenting Author: Robert T Brennan, Research Program for Children and Adversity at Boston College; Non-Presenting Author: Theresa Stichick Betancourt, Boston College

• Gender and Home Stimulation Moderate the Association between Siblings and Executive Functions in Pakistani Preschoolers - Presenting Author: Mansoor Aslam Rathore, Stanford University; Non-Presenting Author: Emma Armstrong-Carter, Stanford University; Non-Presenting Author: Saima Siyal, Aga Khan University; Non-Presenting Author: Aisha Yousafzai, Harvard TH School of Public Health; Non-Presenting Author: Jelena Obradovic, Stanford University

• Executive Functioning Mediates the Association between Cumulative Risk and Learning in Ghanaian Schoolchildren - Presenting Author: Noelle Suntheimer, University of Pennsylvania; Non-Presenting Author: Michael J. Sulik, Stanford University; Non-Presenting Author: Jelena Obradovic, Stanford University; Non-Presenting Author: Sharon Wolf, University of Pennsylvania