Cited by 137Early Childhood Education and DevelopmentChild Nutrition and Water AccessPoverty, Education, and Child Welfare

Early Childhood Stimulation Interventions in Developing Countries: A Comprehensive Literature Review

Open access
Baker-Henningham, Helen, López Bóo, Florencia·2010·SSRN Electronic Journal

Abstract

This report reviews the effectiveness of early childhood stimulation interventions in developing countries. The report aims to answer the questions: What works in terms of early stimulation for young children in developing countries? For whom and under what conditions do these programs work and why do they work. The report is divided into several sections. Firstly, a brief discussion of the importance of early stimulation for young children in developing countries is provided. Secondly, the methods used to identify and characterize studies are provided and a review of randomized or quasi-experimental trials is presented. Thirdly, a review of the evidence for who benefits most from early interventions is presented followed by a review of program characteristics that affect the success of interventions and an examination of potential mechanisms through which interventions achieve their effects. Finally, recommendations for practice and future research are provided.

The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.

Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.

A few free checks a day · papers already verified open instantly · results are public

Integrity signals

Registry

Crossref · 10.2139/ssrn.1700451

Cites

62 of 62 references verified0 citation errors · 0 not checkable

Statistics

Claims the paper makes

The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.

Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.

A few free checks a day · papers already verified open instantly · results are public

Claims other papers make about this one

Each is checked against this paper’s own text: does it say what the citing paper says it does?

Self-check

Percentages, sums and reported differences re-computed from the paper’s own numbers.

The self-check needs the paper’s full text.

Cites

Flagged first, then by citations

1 of the 63 references couldn’t be matched to a known paper.

Research works printed but not linked: 19

  1. Aboud, F. (2007). Evaluation of early childhood parenting program in rural Bangladesh. Journal of Health, Population and Nutrition, 25, 3-13.
  2. Baker, H. (2003). A randomized controlled trial of psychosocial intervention with mothers of undernourished children using primary health care services in Jamaica. University College London: Unpublished PhD Thesis.
  3. Barnett, S. (1997). Costs and financing of early child development programs. In M. Young (Ed.), Early child development. Investing in our children's future. (pp. 287-295).
  4. Barros, A., Matijasevich, A., Santos, I., & Halpern, R. (2009). Child development in a birth cohort: effects of child stimulation is stronger in less educated mothers. International Journal of Epidemiology, 39, 285-294..
  5. Chang, S., Walker, S., Grantham-McGregor, S., & Powell, C. (2002). Early stunting and later behavior and school achievement. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 43, 775- 783.
  6. Grantham-McGregor, S., Lira, P., Ashworth, A., Morris, S., & Assuncao, A. (1998). The development of LBW term infants and the effects of the environment in northeast Brazil. Journal of Pediatrics, 132, 661-666.
  7. Grantham-McGregor, S., Walker, S., Chang, S., & Powell, C. (1997). Effects of early childhood supplementation with and without supplementation on later development in stunted Jamaican children. American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, 66, 247-253.
  8. Hamadani, J., Tofail, F., Hilaly, A., Huda, S., Engle, P., & Grantham-McGregor, S. (2010). The use of indicators of family care and their relation to child development in Bangladesh. Journal of Health, Population and Nutrition 28, 23-33.
  9. Magwaza, A., & Edwards, S. (1991). An evaluation of an integrated parent-effectiveness training and children's enrichment program for disadvantaged families. South African journal of Psychology, 21, 21-25.
  10. McKay, A., & McKay, H. (1983). Primary school progress after preschool experience: troublesome issues in the conduct of follow-up research and findings from the Cali, Colombia study. In K. King & R. Meyers (Eds.), Preventing school failure: the relationship between preschool and primary education. (pp. 36-42). Ottawa: International Development Research Center.
  11. Meeks-Gardner, J., Grantham-McGregor, S., Himes, J., & Chang, S. (1999). Behavior and development of stunted and non-stunted Jamaican children. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 40, 819-827.
  12. Mora, J., Clement, J., Christiansen, N., Ortiz, N., Vuori, L., & Wagner, M. (1979). Nutritional supplementation, early stimulation and child development. In: Brozek J (Ed.) Behavioral effects of energy and protein deficits. DHEW Pub. no. (NIH) 79-1906 (pp. 255-269).
  13. Myers, R. (1992). The twelve who survive: Strengthening programmes of early child development in the third world. Routledge, London, UK.
  14. National Research Council and Institute of Medicine. (2000) From neurons to neighborhoods. The science of early child development. National Academy Press, Washington D.C.
  15. Powell, C., Baker-Henningham, H., Walker, S., Gernay, J., & Grantham-McGregor, S. (2004). Feasibility of integrating early stimulation into primary care for undernourished Jamaican children: Cluster randomized controlled trial. British Medical Journal, 329, 89.
  16. Rahman, A., Iqbal, Z., Roberts, C., & Husain, N. (2008). Cluster randomized trial to support early development of children in a low-income country. Child: care, health and development, 35(1), 56-62.
  17. Shonkoff, J., Boyce, WT., & McEwen, B. (2009). Neuroscience, molecular biology, and the childhood roots of health disparities: Building a new framework for health promotion and disease prevention. Journal of the American Medical Association, 301, 2252-2259.
  18. Wachs, T. (2000) Necessary but not sufficient: the role of individual and multiple influences on human development. American Psychological Association Press, Washington D.C.
  19. WHO. (1999). The Critical Link. Interventions for physical growth and psychological development. A review. Geneva: Department of Child and Adolescent Health, World Health Organisation.

Cited by

Sorted by citations

Authors
Baker-Henningham, H., & López Bóo, F.
Venue
SSRN Electronic Journal
Publisher
Elsevier BV
Published
2010
ISSN
1556-5068
OpenAlex
W3124702978
Cited by
131
References
63
Citations by year
2025: 2 · 2024: 8 · 2023: 8 · 2022: 11 · 2021: 14 · 2020: 12 · 2019: 10 · 2018: 10 · 2017: 6 · 2016: 8 · 2015: 8 · 2014: 8 · 2013: 16 · 2012: 6
Type
report
Language
en
Open access
Locations
  • SSRN Electronic Journal (publishedVersion)
  • RePEc: Research Papers in Economics (submittedVersion)
  • Econstor (Econstor) (submittedVersion)
Topics
  • Social Sciences › Education › Early Childhood Education and Development
  • Health Sciences › Nursing › Nutrition and Dietetics › Child Nutrition and Water Access
  • Social Sciences › Safety Research › Poverty, Education, and Child Welfare
Keywords
early childhood stimulation, intervention effectiveness, developing countries, young children, child cognitive development

About these checks

Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.

Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.

Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.

What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›

Are you an author, or do you see a problem with this page? Request a review