ABSTRACT
Currently, nine out of ten children in the world are born in a low- or middle-income country. Compared to their counterparts in higher-income countries, these children are more likely to live in poverty, less likely to receive early childhood education, more likely to be stunted, and less likely to live beyond age five (Engle et al., 2013). At the same time, marked variations exist within countries, drawn along the lines of socio-economic status and poverty, gender, ethnicity, urbanicity, and other factors. For example, across countries, children in the top quintile of income were more than twice as likely to be in preschool as those in the bottom quintile (Engle et al., 2011). Although protective and risk factors jointly operate in a child’s life to shape her outcomes, risk factors tend to co-occur to perpetuate a cycle of malnutrition, poor stimulation, early delayed cognitive development, poor school performance, and poverty. Moreover, deficits that occur early in life can accumulate and become more pronounced over time (Nadeau et al., 2011). Correspondingly, early intervention is more effective than remedial interventions; the latter also become more expensive the longer a society waits to intervene (Heckman, 2008).
