Researchers assessed the long-term impact of a special program to help mothers learn how to use play and talk to stimulate their children. The children were between the ages of nine months and 24 months when the two-year program was launched in the late 1980s in a slum in Jamaica’s capital Kingston, and they already were stunted, a sign of severe malnutrition that can harm cognitive development. Researchers went back almost 20 years later to measure how well the original participants, who were now young adults, were doing. They found that children whose mothers took place in the weekly meetings were now less likely to have engaged in violent behavior, and more likely to be employed and to have finished school, when compared with children who didn’t receive the program. In adidtion, their earnings were about 25 percent higher than children not in the program, which put them on par with a comparison group of non-stunted children from the same area. The results have aparked numerous new programs around the globe, as governments and development organizations seek to learn how to replicate the results through cost effective programs at scale.
