Collaborative Research
Overview of Findings Brazilian children growing up in poor states have shown high rates of developmental delays in various domains, especially when living in adverse conditions. A population-level study in the state of Ceará, found a relatively high population-level prevalence (9.2%) of development delay in at least one domain among children 0–6 years, and there are robust associations between developmental delays and socioeconomic status ( link). A related study in Ceará found that “…the greater number of adverse childhood experiences was linearly associated with lower developmental scores. Maternal mental health and intimate partner violence were also associated with lower development scores” ( link). In Salvador da Bahia, underprivileged Brazilian children performed worse than age-matched norms on visual planning and working memory executive function tasks. Full neurological exams of these children found that several had undiagnosed syndromes or disorders, suggesting a considerable number of underprivileged Brazilian children may be suffering from epilepsy, ADHD, sleep disorders and/or severe developmental delays without diagnosis and treatment.
16
Local evidence bolsters the concept that adverse conditions “get under the skin” and affect the biological processes of child development. One of the initiative’s projects collected hair cortisol, which has been used as a biomarker of chronic stress, of mother-child dyads a context of high vulnerability. The researchers found that the maternal–infant hair cortisol correlations were high compared to other mother– child dyads in the existing literature, suggesting that stronger synchrony of maternal-infant cortisol levels exist in high-adversity contexts where families are faced with challenging circumstances ( link). Another study provided “the first evidence from developing countries that that maternal psychopathology and low maternal education are associated with alterations in oscillatory neural activity in infants of adolescent mothers” ( link).
