Yousafzai – PEDS methodology

On the research side we’re following a group of children whose families have participated in the study so we’re following them from birth to two years of age. And we’re taking measurements of their growth, their nutritional well-being, their health. We’re taking measurements of their caregiving environment, their malnutrition status and their functioning: their cognitive development, their language development, their fine and gross motor development, their social emotional development.   

We are observing the interaction between mother and child and we are also seeing whether we have any impact at all on maternal stress. Whether if the mother participates in this, if she is focusing on her child, if she is getting that peer-to-peer support. Does that have any benefits for the mother, as a women, not just as a mother with benefits for her child.  

So, we are, we have another year to go for the study but our early trends are promising. So we are seeing the ECD children who are exposed to these interventions compared with the controlled children thriving a little better, their development is a little better, their growth is a little better. So, we are slowly starting to see a picture, but we will not be able to tell the final results until next year.  

So, it’s a cluster randomized control trial and it’s implemented in a two by two factorial design, so to put it very simply, there are four groups: one, is receiving the lady health worker standard services, so the basic health care that she already provides to the community. The second group is receiving the early childhood development module plus the lady health worker services. The third group is receiving enhanced nutrition counseling and sprinkles, which is a multi-micro-nutrient sachet which they mix into the complementary food from six to twenty four months of age; and the fourth group is receiving everything so they receive the basic health care services, the ECD interventions plus the nutrition.  

And an expectation, as classical work from Jamaica has shown in terms of research, that the children that are exposed to the integrated package whether receiving health, nutritional care and child development interventions, the stimulation, the responsive care for development, those children will benefit the most. And behind that what we really hope to see and over time what we’re beginning to see is, that as the mothers start to, as their 

capacities, as the quality of the sensitivity in their responsiveness skills begin to develop, that will have a spill over affect not just in how the children develop cognitively, but how the mother responds to early signs of illness, how she responds to feeding care, how she responds to the child’s emotional needs as well. So, we hope to see that emerging in our data as well.