Early childhood development

In this paper, I study the effect of unfinished sewerage infrastructure on early-life mortality in Peru. I compile several sources of administrative panel data for 1,400 districts spanning 2005–2015, and I rely on the budgetary plans and timing of expenditure for 6,000 projects to measure unfinished projects and those completed in a given district.

We examine changes in inequality in socio-emotional skills very early in life in two British cohorts born 30 years apart.

Home visiting programs constitute an important policy to support vulnerable families with young children. They mainly aim to improve infant-parent relationships, however evidence on their effectiveness based on observational measures is relatively scarce.

Using a cluster randomised controlled trial, we evaluated a psychosocial stimulation intervention, comprising weekly home visits for 18 months, in urban slums of Cuttack, Odisha, India.

Global access to preschool has increased dramatically yet preschool quality is often poor.

Global access to preschool has increased dramatically yet preschool quality is often poor. We use a randomized controlled trial to evaluate two approaches to improving the quality of Colombian preschools.

We have established a new partnership between academics, local government and early years practitioners to develop, implement and evaluate a home-visiting programme for parents with very young children in England. In this feasibility study, we research local priorities and existing services to evaluate the need for a new early childhood intervention in England.

Building on early animal studies, 20th-century researchers increasingly explored the fact that early events – ranging from conception to childhood – affect a child’s health trajectory in the long-term. By the 21st century, a wide body of research had emerged, incorporating the original ‘Fetal Origins Hypothesis’ into the ‘Developmental Origins of Health and Disease’.

From lagging well behind most European countries in the early 1990s, the UK is now one of the highest spenders on the under-5s in Europe (OECD, 2014). One of the biggest programmes for this age group is Sure Start. It offers families with children under the age of 5 a ‘one-stop shop’ for childcare and early education, health services, parenting support, and employment advice, with the aim of improving children’s school readiness, health, and social and emotional development.

Many children in developing countries grow up in unstimulating environments, leading to deficiencies in early years’ developmental outcomes, particularly cognition and language. Interventions to improve parenting in the first 3 years of life have a clear impact on these outcomes, but the sustainability of effects is mixed, particularly for scalable interventions. There is little evidence of the effect of following-up an early life intervention with another one immediately afterwards. The objective of this study is to help fill this gap.

We study the relationship between child work and cognitive development in four Low and Middle Income Countries.

Journal article published in Early Childhood Research Quarterly on Colombia study on the impact of childcare centres and home-based childcare on child cognitive and socio-emotional development.

Our study contributes to the understanding of key drivers of stunted growth, a factor widely recognized as major impediment to human capital development.

Poor early childhood development (ECD) in low- and middle-income countries is a major concern. There are calls to universalise access to ECD interventions through integrating them into existing government services but little evidence on the medium- or long-term effects of such scalable models.

Preliminary study estimating the lifetime costs of child abuse and neglect.

We used national data to study differences in academic achievement between 5-year-old children with an isolated oral cleft and the general population. We also assessed differences by cleft type.

The relationship between early adversity and numerous negative outcomes across the lifespan is evident in a wide range of societies and cultures (e.g., Pakulak, Stevens, & Neville, 2018). Among the most affected neural systems are those supporting attention, self-regulation, and stress regulation.