Leibniz Institute of Agricultural Development in Transition Economics, 06120 Halle, Germany.
China Center for Agricultural Policy, School of Advanced Agricultural Sciences, Peking University, Beijing 100871, China.
Int J Environ Res Public Health. 2021 Jun 6;18(11):6121. doi: 10.3390/ijerph18116121.
Delays in early child development are among the aspects underlying the persistent developmental gaps between regions and social strata. This study seeks to examine the relationship between the home environment and early child development in less-developed rural areas by drawing on data from 445 children from villages in Guizhou province in southwest China. A demographic questionnaire, the Home Observation Measurement of the Environment (HOME), and the Bayley Scales of Infant Development, version III (BSID-III), were used to measure the child's demographic characteristics, home environment, and early development outcomes, respectively. Our data show that the sample children suffer a delay in various dimensions of child development and a deficit in the HOME scale. The results from a hierarchical regression model suggest that the availability of learning material at home, caregivers' responsiveness and organization sub-scales are significantly positively correlated with the early development of sample children, after controlling for general socioeconomic status, health, and nutrition, and this correlation differs by gender. These results imply that the provision of learning material to households, promoting caregivers' responsiveness and organization in less-developed rural areas could improve early child development among deprived children.
儿童发展迟缓是导致地区和社会阶层间持续存在发展差距的因素之一。本研究通过对来自中国西南部贵州省村庄的 445 名儿童的数据进行分析，旨在探讨欠发达农村地区家庭环境与儿童早期发展之间的关系。研究采用了人口统计学问卷、家庭观察测量环境量表（HOME）和贝利婴幼儿发展量表第三版（BSID-III），分别测量儿童的人口统计学特征、家庭环境和早期发展结果。我们的数据显示，样本儿童在各个维度的儿童发展上都存在延迟，并且在 HOME 量表上存在缺陷。分层回归模型的结果表明，在控制了一般社会经济地位、健康和营养状况后，家庭学习材料的可用性、照顾者的反应性和组织性子量表与样本儿童的早期发展呈显著正相关，且这种相关性因性别而异。这些结果表明，为贫困家庭提供学习材料，促进欠发达农村地区照顾者的反应性和组织性，可能会改善贫困儿童的早期发展。
