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, below, shows the Theory of Change suggested by the synthesis of quantitative findings from 37 interventions from 22 studies that considered child-focused educational interventions.
Source publication
This review assembles extant evidence that will help determine how, why and under what conditions Early Childhood Development (ECD) interventions in developing-country contexts are effective in promoting cognitive development. Typical cognitive development can be defined broadly as expected gains in language, thinking and understanding. Atypical de...
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Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to formulate a model for developing, implementing and evaluating performance management systems in Jordan public universities that will ensure the successful achievement of their set goals in the competitive dynamic environment.
Design/methodology/approach
This is a conceptual paper that focuses on the model...
Citations
... Children's cognitive development refers to the growth and progression of a child's thinking, their ability to solve problems, use their memory, pay attention, speak, and process information (Anmarkrud et al., 2019). Cognitive development plays a decisive role in the formation of the intellectual abilities, learning potential, and overall academic performance among children and adolescents (Benvenuti et al., 2023;Rao et al., 2014). This is why promoting cognitive development in preschool education is of utmost importance. ...
Digitalization can potentially benefit the creative and cognitive development of children. This study aims to analyze this impact on a sample of preschool children. A total of 80 preschoolers were divided into four groups based on their age and program variables: there were two groups (control and training) of children aged 3 to 4 years and two groups (control and training) of children aged 5 to 6 years. The study uses the following data collection tools: the Torrance Test of Creative Thinking (TTCT) Figural Form A and the Wechsler Preschool and Primary Scale of Intelligence (WPPSI-IV). The digital intervention involved participating in a specially designed digitally-enhanced learning course entitled “Preschoolers: Digital Adventures”. Both training groups exhibited a statistically higher level of creative thinking compared to baseline, as evidenced by TTCT-A scores. The younger training group also had significantly higher scores on all WPPSI-IV subscales, while their peers in the control group failed to show such a result. Older controls significantly improved on all except one WPPSI-IV subscale, i.e., Fluid Reasoning Index subscale, while their peers in the training group scored higher on all WPPSI-IV subscales without exception. The present findings suggest that digital enhancement of the learning process in preschool education can help improve certain aspects of creative and cognitive development. The results can be used by educators and parents to integrate digital tools, applications and activities into preschool curricula.
... Scholars across disciplines have noted the critical importance of 'quality' in ECE (Rao et al., 2014;Sabol et al., 2013). Quality ECE is said to enhance child outcomes and later school success and social adjustment, whereas low quality can have damaging effects on children (OECD, 2018). ...
Early childhood has increasingly been acknowledged as a vital time for all children. Inclusive and quality education is part of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, with the further specification that all children have access to quality pre‐primary education. As early childhood education (ECE) has expanded worldwide, so have concerns about the quality of ECE provision, including whether its pedagogy is culturally meaningful and contextually appropriate. While these issues are much debated in themselves, often missing is a key stakeholder group for such discussions: young children. Young children have critical insights and perspectives of key importance for ensuring quality ECE. This article addresses how quality ECE can be conceptualised, through reflections on creative and play‐based methods with young children, used in a cross‐national project titled Safe Inclusive Participative Pedagogy. The article draws on community case studies undertake by two of the country teams in Brazil and South Africa. In contexts where children's participation is not necessarily familiar in ECE settings nor understood by key stakeholders, the fieldwork shows that children can express their views and experiences through using creative and play‐based methods. We argue that these methods can become part of a critical pedagogy through ECE settings, where ECE practitioners, children and other key stakeholders engage in ongoing, challenging and transformative dialogue. In turn, critical pedagogy has the potential to strengthen local practices, challenge top‐down approach, and foster quality safe, inclusive, participative early years education.
... Health promotion for parenting programs has consistently been linked with early childhood development and cognitive development [12,[35][36][37][38], and studies conducted in 40 LMICs found that early childhood interventions can have a reliable and positive effect on cognitive development [39]. Although the evidence base for the importance of educational interventions for cognitive development has grown, there is less agreement about the most effective and efficient way to enhance cognitive development. ...
Inadequate nutrition and insufficient stimulation in early childhood can lead to long-term deficits in cognitive and social development. Evidence for policy and decision-making regarding the cost of delivering nutrition education is lacking in low and middle-income countries (LMIC). In rural Uganda, we conducted a cluster-randomized controlled trial (RCT) examining the effect of a maternal nutrition education intervention on developmental outcomes among children aged 6-8 months. This intervention led to significantly improved cognitive scores when the children reached the age of 20-24 months. When considering the potential for this intervention's future implementation, the desired effects should be weighed against the increased costs. This study therefore aimed to assess the cost-effectiveness of this education intervention compared with current practice. Health outcome data were based on the RCT. Cost data were initially identified by reviewing publications from the RCT, while more detailed information was obtained by interviewing researchers involved in processing the intervention. This study considered a healthcare provider perspective for an 18-months' time horizon. The control group was considered as the current practice for the future large-scale implementation of this intervention. A cost-effectiveness analysis was performed, including calculations of incremental cost-effectiveness ratios (ICERs). In addition, uncertainty in the results was characterized using one-way and probabilistic sensitivity analyses. The ICER for the education intervention compared with current practice was USD ($) 16.50 per cognitive composite score gained, with an incremental cost of $265.79 and an incremental cognitive composite score of 16.11. The sensitivity analyses indicated the robustness of these results. The ICER was sensitive to changes in cognitive composite score and the cost of personnel. The education intervention can be considered cost-effective compared with the current practice. The outcome of this study, including the cost analysis, health outcome, cost-effectiveness, and sensitivity analysis, can be useful to inform policymakers and stakeholders about effective resource allocation processes in Uganda and possibly other LMIC.
... Opportunities for learning in young children must first be created in the home, especially if children do not attend preschool (Rao et al., 2014). Unfortunately, in LMICs such as South Africa, many parents and caregivers may have never attended school or attended a poor quality school and, therefore have low levels of literacy and numeracy (Modisaotsile, 2012). ...
A child’s home environment has been shown to be related to the development of early numeracy skills in some countries. However, significant relationships between home learning environment and math achievement have not consistently been found, and likely vary across different cultural and socio-political contexts. Here we explored the home environment and early numeracy skills of 243 children (3-5 years), who were not attending preschool programmes in very low-income settings in Cape Town, South Africa. Caregivers completed a questionnaire including information regarding experiences of children in the home; children completed a number identification task, a counting task and the Give-N task. The amount of resources in the home learning environment (e.g. the number of books and toys), frequency of home learning activities caregivers did with their children, and caregiver levels of education and income were not associated with number knowledge. While the home learning environment has been shown to be important for developing early numeracy skills in previous research, this study suggests that factors other than the home learning environment may also be important targets to foster numeracy skills and school readiness in low-income settings in South Africa.
... A systematic review of the effectiveness of early childhood interventions in promoting cognitive development revealed that the implementation of comprehensive programs on cognitive development was very effective. Interventions such as child-focused education and stimulation, parent-focused support, income supplementation, and nutrition and health interventions were effective in improving the cognitive development of children 21 . Food prepared by the mothers promote weight gain and cognitive development because the mothers can find food sources based on local availability, and children prefer local food prepared by the mothers 22 . ...
Childhood malnutrition impairs health, development, and productivity in adulthood. Underweight children have been found to have a variety of cognitive abnormalities. The present study examined the effect of a nutrition-focused intervention on cognitive development among malnourished preschool children between 3 and 5 years of age residing in selected villages of Udupi district, Karnataka. A cluster of 12 villages was chosen randomly. The trial had enrolled preschool children (n = 253) from randomly assigned selected villages to intervention (n = 127) and control arms (n = 126). The mothers in the intervention arm received nutrition-focused intervention and reinforcement of health teaching for 12 months. The post-intervention outcome on the cognitive development of malnourished children was measured at 6 months and 12 months. Statistical analyses indicated that 52% of children in the intervention group had average cognitive development scores on the pre-test, whereas on the post-test, only 5.5% were in the average level of cognitive development. In the control group, the average cognitive development status of the children decreased from 44.4% in the pretest to 26.2% in the post-test. The cognitive development of malnourished children in the intervention group improved compared to the control group (p < 0.001). This study revealed that home-based nutrition-focused food helps to enhance children’s cognitive development.
Trial registration: ctri@gov.in. CTRI/31/03/2017/008273 [Registered on: 31/03/2017].
... Therefore, there is a push for internationally comparable data to track changes and equity in young children's access to quality early childhood programs within and across countries. Recent reviews of evidence from high income countries (HICs) as well as lowand middle-income countries (LMICs) demonstrate that participation in high-quality early childhood care and education programs can lead to lasting positive impacts on child development (Atteberry et al., 2019;Berlinski, et al., 2009;Heckman et al., 2010;Ludwig & Miller, 2007;Onyango et al., 2021;Rao et al., 2014). Globally, the most recent data from UNICEF and UNESCO pre-COVID pandemic from 196 countries showed that ECCE enrollment for the population of children between age 3 and primary school entry was 54% globally, ranging from 21% in low-income countries to 79% in highincome countries (McCoy et al., 2021). ...
Investments in early childhood care and education (ECCE) have contributed to a growing demand for internationally comparable data. Yet data on access to quality ECCE are not routinely collected in many countries, leading to limited information on equitable access to ECCE, quality of provision, and the impact on learning and wellbeing outcomes. This paper outlines the current status of global measurement of access to quality ECCE and identifies issues with definitions, availability, and accuracy of ECCE data across countries and outlines paths forward. We argue that estimates of access to ECCE should be based on children's participation in quality ECCE across multiple program types, rather than enrollment or attendance alone, given the critical importance of dosage and participation for ensuring positive benefits from ECCE. Governments, international organizations, and researchers all have roles to play in setting standards to define and monitor ECCE, generating workable tools for measuring nationally, and globally investing in national monitoring systems and routine household surveys to obtain accurate estimates of access to quality ECCE.
... Children who enter elementary grades with greater social skills often develop more positive attitudes toward school and experience greater success in adjusting to school, in addition to better grades and higher achievement (Gustavsen, 2017). Mann et al. (2016) found that early maths skills and reading were the best predictors of academic achievement, while other scholars found social skills alone were not a predictor of later academic achievement (Blair, 2002;Rao et al., 2014). In South Africa, Munthali et al. (2014) found that children who had participated in early childhood education and related programs generally remain in school, are unlikely to repeat classes, and their class performance is much better than those who never attended preprimary programmes. ...
A child must be exposed to early learning situations and assisted in developing the skills and ways of functioning to develop, thrive, and be ready for school. It is established that poor school readiness preparation (SRP) negatively impacts subsequent learning outcomes. A qualitative study was conducted in Gugulethu, a poor community in the Western Cape province in South Africa, to determine how Early Childhood Development centres in a poor community prepare children for schooling. The study involved a sample of 12 community-based ECD centres. Interviews and focus group discussions were conducted with direct role-players, including principals, practitioners, and ECD industry key informants. Data was enriched through direct observation of operations at each facility. The study found that all the community-based ECD centres struggle to provide quality SRP. Contributing factors include limited ECD practitioner training, education resources, infrastructure, and facility management. Because these conditions relate to poverty, they affect the SRP of most children in poorer communities, such as Gugulethu, who tend to only have access to under-resourced ECD centres. The study concludes that, given the appalling performance of South Africa’s basic education system, the government has to accept that improving its learning outcomes begins with vastly improving the SRP of children from birth.
... 44 Although the level of disability did not differ across the three groups, 26% of the total sample scored for any disability. Targeted interventions could improve developmental outcomes, 45 and adapted disability services may be needed for many of these young children. The results from the current study indicate that addressing factors such as young pregnancy or poor maternal education could be of particular benefit. ...
Background:
The intergenerational effects of HIV require long-term investigation. We compared developmental outcomes of different generations impacted by HIV-children of mothers not living with HIV, the 'second generation' (ie, with recently infected mothers) and the 'third generation' (ie, children of perinatally infected mothers).
Methods:
A cross-sectional community sample of N=1015 young mothers (12-25 years) and their first children (2-68 months, 48.2% female), from South Africa's Eastern Cape Province. 71.3% (n=724) of children were born to mothers not living with HIV; 2.7% (n=27; 1 living with HIV) were third-generation and 26.0% (n=264; 11 living with HIV) second-generation children. Child scores on the Mullen Scales of Early Learning (MSEL), the WHO Ten Questions Screen for Disability and maternal demographics were compared between groups using χ2 tests and univariate approach, analysis of variance analysis. Hierarchical linear regressions investigated predictive effects of familial HIV infection patterns on child MSEL composite scores, controlling for demographic and family environment variables.
Results:
Second-generation children performed poorer on gross (M=47.0, SD=13.1) and fine motor functioning (M=41.4, SD=15.2) and the MSEL composite score (M=90.6, SD=23.0) than children with non-infected mothers (gross motor: M=50.4, SD=12.3; fine motor: M=44.4, SD=14.1; composite score: M=94.1, SD=20.7). The third generation performed at similar levels to non-exposed children (gross motor: M=52.4, SD=16.1; fine motor: M=44.3, SD=16.1, composite score: M=94.7, SD=22.2), though analyses were underpowered for definite conclusions. Hierarchical regression analyses suggest marginal predictive effects of being second-generation child compared with having a mother not living with HIV (B=-3.3, 95% CI=-6.8 to 0 .1) on MSEL total scores, and non-significant predictive effects of being a third-generation child (B=1.1, 5% CI=-7.5 to 9.7) when controlling for covariates. No group differences were found for disability rates (26.9% third generation, 27.7% second generation, 26.2% non-exposed; χ2=0.02, p=0.90).
Conclusion:
Recently infected mothers and their children may struggle due to the disruptiveness of new HIV diagnoses and incomplete access to care/support during pregnancy and early motherhood. Long-standing familial HIV infection may facilitate care pathways and coping, explaining similar cognitive development among not exposed and third-generation children. Targeted intervention and fast-tracking into services may improve maternal mental health and socioeconomic support.
... There now exist numerous studies demonstrating the efficacy of high-quality early childhood education and care (ECEC) across a range of low-and middle-income countries (LMICs; Britto et al., 2017;Luoto et al., 2021;Maldonado-Carreño et al., 2022;Rao et al., 2013;Richter et al., 2021). Much of this evidence though comprises evaluations of recently designed and launched interventions, rather than the preexisting programmes accessed by most families. ...
There is near consensus that early childhood education and care (ECEC) is essential to children's early development. A common corollary is that early learning will be pivotal to helping redress inequities in educational outcomes. We examine whether this is true among rural communities in the Indian states of Assam, Rajasthan, and Telangana. Specifically, we assess whether learning gains for the most disadvantaged are retained in comparison to more advantaged children who had lower initial learning levels. We find that lower-achieving, more advantaged children (as measured by mother's education) soon overtake higher-achieving but less advantaged children. In contrast, higher-achieving girls remain ahead of lower-achieving boys in Assam and Telangana, although they are caught up in Rajasthan. Given the differing patterns across the states, we explore the extent to which these may be shaped by their respective social and policy contexts.
... There now exist numerous studies demonstrating the efficacy of high-quality early childhood education and care (ECEC) across a range of low-and middle-income countries (LMICs; Britto et al., 2017;Luoto et al., 2021;Maldonado-Carreño et al., 2022;Rao et al., 2013;Richter et al., 2021). Much of this evidence though comprises evaluations of recently designed and launched interventions, rather than the preexisting programmes accessed by most families. ...
There is near consensus that early childhood education and care (ECEC) is essential to children’s early development. A common corollary is that early learning will be pivotal to helping redress inequities in educational outcomes. We examine whether this is true among rural communities in the Indian states of Assam, Rajasthan, and Telangana. Specifically, we assess whether learning gains for the most disadvantaged are retained in comparison to more advantaged children who had lower initial learning levels. We find that lower-achieving, more advantaged children (as measured by mother’s education) soon overtake higher-achieving but less advantaged children. In contrast, higher-achieving girls remain ahead of lower-achieving boys in Assam and Telangana, although they are caught up in Rajasthan. Given the differing patterns across the states, we explore the extent to which these may be shaped by their respective social and policy contexts.
