Supporting Child Development Through Parenting Interventions in Low- to Middle-Income Countries: An Updated Systematic Review
Frontiers in Public Health
Zhang, L., Ssewanyana, D., et al. (2021).
Frontiers in Public Health, 9, Article 671988.
This systematic review investigates the effects of parenting interventions (e.g., responsive, stimulating, and sensitive caregiver-child interactions) on developmental outcomes in young children, birth to 2 years old, living in low and middle-income countries. This summary highlights conclusions relevant to speech-language pathologists.
International Development Research Centre (Canada); Aga Khan Foundation Canada
This systematic review extends the work of the following articles:<br />
<ul>
<li>Aboud, F. & Yousafzai, A. (2015). Global health and development in early childhood. <em>Annual Review of Psychology. 66, </em>433–57. doi: 10.1146/annurev-psych-010814-015128 22.</li>
<li>Britto, P., et al. (2017). Nurturing care: promoting early childhood development. <em>Lancet. 389</em>, 91–102. doi: 10.1016/S0140-6736(16)31390-3</li>
<li>Grantham-McGregor, S., et al. (2014). Effects of integrated child development and nutrition interventions on child development and nutritional status. <em>Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences. 1308</em>, 11–32. doi: 10.1111/nyas.12284</li>
</ul>
May 2015 to December 2020
Randomized controlled trials reporting quantitative findings
21
Across studies, parenting interventions demonstrated positive, small-to-medium effects on childhood developmental outcomes (e.g., cognition, language, and motor skills) in young children living in low and middle-income countries. Cognitive outcomes (<em>d</em>=0.42) and language development outcomes (<em>d</em>=0.47) demonstrated moderate effects from stimulation interventions. The authors note a lack of interventions targeting social-emotional outcomes.
Parental interventions provided in group sessions or in group sessions combined with home visits demonstrated more benefit for cognitive development for young children who live in low and middle-income countries as compared to parental interventions provided in individual sessions alone. Interventions provided across a greater number of sessions (i.e., 12 or more sessions) demonstrated more benefit for language development compared to fewer sessions.
