Friday, July 28, 2006

LONDON, England (Reuters): Social stimulation and organised play sessions in early childhood can have long-term benefits for the emotional development of children with stunted growth, University of the West Indies researchers said.

About 30 percent of all children under 5 years old suffer from stunted growth due to malnutrition. It is also associated with behavioural problems in adolescence.

But scientists from UWI in Kingston, Jamaica found that teenagers who had organised weekly play sessions with their mothers when they were babies were less likely to suffer from depression and anxiety or behave antisocially and had higher self esteem.

"Stimulation in early childhood has sustained benefits to stunted children's emotional outcomes and development," Professor Susan Walker said in a report in the British Medical Journal.

She and her team compared the impact of early social stimulation on 129 children between 9 months and 2 years old living in poor neighbourhoods in Kingston, all of whom were identified as stunted at that age.

The children were divided into four groups. One received milk supplements each week. Another had organised weekly play sessions with their mothers. The third group had both the dietary and social stimulation and the fourth group had no interventions.

When the researchers re-examined 103 of the children 16 years later they found that the teenagers who had the social simulation as babies had fewer psychological and social problems than the other adolescents.

The milk supplements had no significant impact on the children.

"The next challenge is to develop interventions that can meet the needs of the enormous number of stunted children," Walker added.

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