Because child development occurs as a changing child interacts with (and within) a changing environment, an ECCD project needs information about the status of children and the range of contexts and conditions affecting their care and development.

The status of children
Many commonly available indicators shed light on the condition of children and help to define the areas or groups most in need of attention. Most of these indicators relate to children's survival or health and nutritional status. But some relate to children's social and psychological development and to their progress and performance in primary school.

Survival, growth, and health status indicators. These indicators are usually available for children during their first two years, but less often near the end of early childhood. Those most commonly used include:

• Rate of low-birthweight babies (weighing less than 2,500 grams at birth).

• Infant and child mortality rates (deaths among children under one year of age and under five years of age, per thousand).

• Malnutrition (based on height or weight for age, height for weight, or arm circumference).

• Micronutrient levels.

• Morbidity.

• Immunization rates.

This information can help to determine the priority that should be given to health and nutrition components in ECCD programs and to identify components or activities needed. For example, there may be relatively little malnutrition as measured by the standard indicators, but iron or vitamin A deficiencies may be high among children at age five or six, impairing their general development and threatening their performance in school. Thus poor micronutrient status would be identified as a contributing factor to a larger developmental problem or to school repetition. Information about the distribution of these indicators, if available, can help to determine the dimension of projects by providing a first approximation of need and of the areas and groups of children most in need of attention.

Some of this information can be found in annual reports of UNICEF (annexes of The State of the World's Children, or country reports), the World Bank's World Development Report, the UNDP's Human Development Report, or the IDB's country and socioeconomic reports. For more precise and recent data and for distributions, surveys or results from national health monitoring systems will probably have to be consulted.

To be kept in mind is that a relatively good showing on health and nutrition indicators does not necessarily mean that children will also present a positive profile of psychosocial development. A separate set of indicators is needed to assess this.

Child development indicators and measures. Indicators of a child's general developmental status include the health and nutrition indicators mentioned above. But it is also important to try to obtain indicators of children's psychosocial condition. Ideally, these would include indicators of:

• Motor development.

• Cognitive development.

• Language development.

• Social development.

• Emotional development (self-esteem, self-concept).

• Life skills (preliteracy and prenumeracy skills

A few countries in the region have made progress toward agreement on measurement instruments that provide such information. Chile and Colombia have validated instruments on a large scale and therefore have estimates of psychosocial development for children of different ages during early childhood. Jamaica is establishing a child status profile for the point of entry into primary school that includes psychosocial as well as health and nutrition indicators. Bolivia is experimenting with a monitoring system linked to its sample survey system.

Other countries have adapted a variety of measurement instruments for child development and tested them in small studies, but if there is no agreement on an instrument, validation studies and national norms will be lacking and the measure will not have been broadly applied. Nevertheless, there are usually smaller studies, sometimes several, that may give a general idea of how children are developing. These studies are a potentially valuable source of information, but should be viewed with a critical eye.

Although controversy still surrounds developmental indicators and measures, particularly as applied in different cultural contexts, it is possible to use them in a general and sensitive way to assess the status of children. In Chile, for example, it has been possible to show with relatively high reliability that although children's nutritional status improved remarkably over a 15-year period, the general level of cognitive development remained virtually the same. Moreover, the measures applied at different ages suggest that abilities begin to diverge rapidly at about 18 months.

Using such instruments, a general idea can be obtained of the geographical areas and groups of children where the need for ECCD interventions is greatest. This can be done with samples and without labeling individual children as failures or as behind in their development. For more information about developmental indicators and measures see the references in tab 8.

Progress and performance in primary school. Another set of indicators used to describe the status of children focuses on their progress and performance in the early years of primary school. These indicators include repetition rates and the results of standardized tests on skills and knowledge in language and other areas. In a sense they are "after the fact." They may tell more about the quality of the primary school than about the child's development before entering school.

The environment
The environment affects child care and development at different levels and at different distances from the child. Social, economic, political, and demographic conditions affect child care and development by making it easier or harder for families to raise children. Government policies and legal frameworks also affect possibilities for families, and the kind and quality of services for children. The family environment and family support systems have a more immediate effect on child care and development, as do the status and condition of women. And cultural beliefs about child care and development play a central part in determining child rearing practices.

Social, economic, political, and demographic indicators. ECCD projects, like any social projects, should be knowledgeable about social, economic, political, and demographic indicators, and about the trends in and distribution of such indicators:

Income and employment levels and distribution. Income influences the immediate ability of families to provide for the basic needs of children and other family members. It also influences families' ability to pay for alternative care.

Literacy and schooling levels and distribution. Literacy and schooling levels are known to affect the style and goals of child care. Low levels of literacy and education may also influence the choice of beneficiaries of a project and the kinds of materials provided.

Population distribution and change by age group. Of particular interest for ECCD planning and programming are estimates of the population under 6 years of age. In many countries in which a relatively large share of the total population is under age 15, recent reductions in fertility mean that the population of children under 6 is now growing more slowly and perhaps even shrinking. The population figures will also give a general idea of the dependency ratio; the higher the ratio, the more difficult is attention to children.

Political organization and forms of participation. The less democratic a country's political organization, the more difficult it may be to foster real participation by stakeholders in project planning, execution, and evaluation. More democratic, participatory structures may require more patience by program managers and a longer time table for project preparation than is sometimes allowed.

Social and ethnic organization and distribution. The goals of child development and the value and belief systems that influence child care practices will almost certainly differ by class and ethnic origin. The larger the "indigenous" population and the greater the cultural variation in a country, the greater the challenge for project managers and others involved in developing a project to understand and respond to variation in value and belief systems and in related child care practices.

Rural-urban and agricultural migration patterns. Migration may turn out to be a particularly important variable in ECCD projects. It can affect patterns of family organization and care for several reasons:

• Immediate families are split up as fathers or mothers migrate alone to seek employment in urban areas.

• Extended families are split up, so that grandmothers are unable to help care for children and parents unable to show their daughters and sons how to provide care.

• Temporary migration by families for work sometimes creates special situations (such as groups of migrant workers) requiring special kinds of projects.

• The displacement of rural families to cities often requires adjustments in traditional forms of child care that are difficult to make and can have a negative effect on children's development. Practices that work in rural areas do not necessarily work in urban areas.

• Marginal urban communities with migrants from many areas lack solidarity and a common tradition, making collaborative and participatory work at the community level more difficult.

Government policies and the legal framework. A project should be informed by a broad understanding of the policy and legal framework in the country.

• Broad policies of operation. For example, are policies characterized by centralization or decentralization, by statism or privatization?

• Social policy. What is the government's responsibility with regard to families? What is the level of social spending, and how much is allocated to children?

• Sectoral policies. In education, is preschool compulsory? And in health, is there a commitment to achieving such targets as 90 percent immunization?

• Implementation policies. For example, who should do what, and what norms should be followed?

• Policies related to child care and women's employment. Are laws on the books providing maternity leave and guarantee of re-employment without prejudice following leave? Does a social security system provide child care as a benefit?

The roles and status of women. An understanding of the roles and status of women is critical in understanding the conditions for early childhood care and development.

• Social status and discrimination. To what extent is women's place still considered to be in the home? Are girl babies and girl children treated different than boys?

• Education levels. How do the education levels of women compare with those of men?

• Health and nutritional status. What is the rate of morbidity? What percentage of children under six suffer from severe or moderate malnutrition? What is the micro-nutrient status of children with respect to iodine, Vitamin A, Iron?

• Maternal mortality. What is the rate and what are the causes of maternal mortality?

• Age at first pregnancy. What percentage of first pregnancies are teenage pregnancies?

• Labor force participation and work demands. What percentage of women work outside the home in paid employment (in the formal and informal sectors, and in services, manufacturing, and agriculture)? What kinds of jobs do they hold? What percentage of women work more than 10 hours a day outside the home?

• Family structure. What percentage of households are headed by women, and what is the employment of women heads of household?

Families. Information about families may be available from household surveys of various kinds.

Types of families. In an extended family, in which grandparents or other relatives live in the same household, it is more likely that a child can be cared for in the home and by the family. This may affect demand for alternative care, but also the quality of care. In nuclear families care at home becomes more difficult and often depends on a family's poverty level. Both in families that are extremely poor and in those that are better off, chances are higher that the mother as well as the father will work outside the home. In one-parent households care at home is even more difficult. The literature suggests that in general the condition of children is more precarious in these households than in others. In addition, "reconstituted" families, in which one of the two parents is "new," often provide a less favorable environment for early child care and development than "original" families.

Income and employment. In families in extreme poverty all adults must work outside the home. That often means that mothers cannot breastfeed babies and that parents must find alternative care or that they (usually the mother) must take employment that allows them to care for their child at the same time, employment that is generally part time or poorly paid. Poverty also means that parents are unable to pay for alternative care and must arrange care with siblings or relatives or with neighbors on a reciprocal basis. If siblings are called on to provide care, they may have to leave school prematurely and the quality of care may be lower. Studies show that the most important factor in whether a family escapes from or returns to extreme poverty is employment of family members. Finding employment may help the family escape extreme poverty, but it may be detrimental to a child's psychosocial development.

Conditions in the home. Conditions in the home are clearly related to the size and type of the family and to its poverty level. But other factors also come into play.

• Physical conditions. Do homes have running and potable water and an indoor bathroom? How many people are there per room?

• Educational climate. In household data analysis educational climate has been defined recently in terms not only of the education of mothers, but also of the average number of years of education of household members aged 15 and above. This variable has been shown to be related to children's performance in school and is likely to be related to their intellectual development as well.

• Presence or absence of learning materials. Whether there are learning materials in a home might also be considered part of its educational climate. If such information is available, it usually relates to books or other reading material. But televisions might also be included, because they provide opportunities for certain kinds of learning. They also may serve as a babysitter.

• Expectations. What are parents' social and educational expectations for their children? (This information is usually more important for families living in poverty than for well-to-do families.) Are expectations the same for boys and girls?

Child rearing beliefs and practices. Information collected about child rearing should encompass such areas as birthing practices, feeding, and nurturing.

Who cares for the child? How is this changing? In some countries this information will be available at least in part from household surveys. In others, studies will be available that give an idea of who is responsible for care at different ages in particular social or cultural groups. For the most part mothers are still the principal caregivers, even if children spend time in a child care or preschool center. Fathers generally spend little time in direct care of children, but they may contribute to care in other ways—economically or through emotional support of the mother. The involvement of siblings, grandparents, and other relatives in child care varies a great deal from group to group (see table 2.3).

Table 2.3 Who cares for the child?

How are children cared for? What practices are followed? And how are practices changing? For nutritional practices during the postnatal period and infancy, for example, it would be important to know the extent of breastfeeding and how that practice is changing (see table 2.4). If a program will target the preschool age group, information should be sought on diets and feeding practices for children in that group. For socialization, it would be important to know to what extent parents show affection, and how. Information also should be sought about child abuse at different stages of development.

Table 2.4 Child rearing practices

What are the beliefs and values that support practices? How are they changing? Cultures are guided by, and often distinguished by, beliefs about what happens in this world and in an unknown afterlife. Beliefs may arise from practical experience or from attempts to deal with the unknown. If basic beliefs about how children develop and how they should be cared for are rooted in religion or in experience, programs seeking to change practices may have to take a different tack than they would use if the beliefs were rooted in "science." Beliefs about protection from the "evil eye," for example, will influence practices and will need to be dealt with in a program of parental support and education, not ignored.