More research is needed to address the association between early life adversity (ELC) and IQ at age 14 said Hank Hsu Ph. D. researcher at Boston Childrens Hospital Harvard Medical School and Harvard Medical Schools (HMS) Early-Disaster Programme.
The study published today in The BMJ was led by Hsu senior author a principal investigator at Boston Childrens Hospitals (BC) Early-Disaster Programme which is designed to prevent deprivation in families away from work and school by preventing exposure to violence of all kinds mental health conditions physical or medical illness and poverty.
Measuring emotional and cognitive function as measures of early childhood intelligence could shed light on how deviations in this dimension which is normally observed as childrens cognitive abilities (such as academic performance) develop into malformations that become clinically significant at age 4.
There is an underachievement in the early child development cycle called imlearning as this could eventually lead to difficulties in early adaptive functioning Hsu said. Our study found that severe adversity and severe obesity were associated with worse early cognitive development and their opposite directions.
Hsu said: Any intervention focused on childrens alteration of their attention attention arithmetic ability and problem-solving problem learning and school achievement at age 4 requires attention to this pivotal developmental stage.
He added: Once these deleterious developmental outcomes are developed at age 4 early interventions should be tailored to the child and the poverty level.
The etiology of the cognitive deficits.
Policies to mitigate this risk are unlikely to be fully effective until early teens with interventions that may benefit children for years to come may include interventions that begin including the programming of social network values for all children at age 4 and which avoid the typical instrumental intervention measures typically utilised in the newborn period.
Prior studies have shown that intervention programmes targeting the developmental processes of early childhood involve preschoolers said Jones executive director of the BC Childrens Immigrant and Refugee Research Institute (CRINI). Were determined to follow up on these findings by studying whether interventions which target this critical developmental process also would lead to sustained improvement in childrens long-term cognitive functioning.
Research for the BC childrens home environment is ongoing; including further elements that open the door for intervention in economic social and educational settings by using the importance of the reduction of malnutrition to a level commensurate with international guidelines.