Early Childhood Development in Latin America and the Caribbean

C hildren in many developing countries suffer from profound deficits in nutrition, health, fine and gross motor skills, cognitive development, and socioemotional development. Early childhood development outcomes are important markers of children’s welfare in their own right. In addition, the deleterious effects of inadequate development at early ages can be long lasting. Children display large differences in cognitive and noncognitive skills or abilities at early ages. A well-established finding from the literature on the United States is that children in households with higher income and higher parental education levels perform better on a variety of cognitive tests and have fewer behavioral problems than their counterparts from low-income households. Steep gradients between socioeconomic status and early childhood skills have also been found in Latin America. Differences in test performance persist as these children age. Moreover, research from a number of developed countries suggests that low levels of cognitive development in childhood, as measured by tests administered as early as twenty-two months of age, are important predictors of wages. Others argue that noncognitive dimensions of development in early childhood are important determinants of future success.