1-009 - Role of Family Processes and Implications for Strengthening Interventions in Low- and Middle Income Countries

Session Type: Paper Symposium

Integrative Statement

have access to quality early childhood development, care and preprimary education so that they are ready for primary education. Over the last three-decades early childhood intervention research in low- and middle-income countries has demonstrated the protective benefits of parenting and preschool services in limited resource settings for young children. However, very few of these interventions have achieved large-scale impact; therefore, many children do not access high-quality early childhood development, care, and education services. In order to advance the effective implementation of evidence-based early childhood interventions, further research is needed to understand the proximal caregiving environments for children in highly disadvantaged settings. Children in these settings are exposed to multiple and co-occurring biological and psychosocial risks including malnutrition, suboptimal breastfeeding, infectious illnesses, inadequate early learning opportunities, poor responsive parenting, low maternal education, and maternal depression. Mitigating these risks requires complex intervention strategies and a greater understanding of the factors that predict outcomes as a result of early childhood interventions.

In this symposium, we present early childhood research from three diverse global regions with high burdens of poor early child development; Africa, Latin America, and South Asia. We discuss three risk-modifiers, namely maternal-child interaction, the home stimulation environment, and maternal depression in order to elucidate both intervention effects and implications for intervention design.

Sub Unit

• Family Context & Processes

Chair

• Aisha Yousafzai, Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health

Individual Presentations

• Maternal Scaffolding and Home Stimulation: Key Mediators of Early Intervention Effects on Children’s Cognitive Development - Presenting Author: Jelena Obradović, Stanford University; Aisha Yousafzai, Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health; Jenna Elizabeth Finch, Stanford University; Muneera Rasheed, Aga Khan University

• Determinants of positive socio-emotional development among school aged children in rural Pakistan - Presenting Author: Joanna Maselko, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill; Karen O'Donnell, Duke University; Kiren Saqib, Human Development Resarch Foundation; Siham Skiander, Human Development Resarch Foundation

• The Relationship Between Parental and Child Mental Disorders in the Context of HIV - Presenting Author: Tamsen Jean Rochat, Human and Social Development Programme, Human Sciences Research Council, South Africa; Brian Houle, 6. School of Demography, The Australian National University, Canberra, Australia; Alan Stein, 4. Section of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, Department of Psychiatry, University of Oxford, United Kingdom; Rebecca Pearson, 8. School of Social and Community Medicine, Bristol University, Bristol, United Kingdom; Ruth Bland, Human and Social Development Programme, Human Sciences Research Council, South Africa

• Pre-Academic Stimulation Moderates the Effects of a Preschool Intervention for At-Risk Chilean Children - Presenting Author: Jenna Elizabeth Finch, Stanford University; Hirokazu Yoshikawa, New York University