Volume 24, Issue 103, May - June, 2020

Improvements in developmental outcomes of an 18-month-old child from Rural Wardha - A Case Study

Manoj Patil¹, Shital Telrandhe², Mahlaqua Nazli Khatib³, Shilpa Gaidhane⁴, Deepak Saxena⁵, Somen Saha⁶, Pankaj Bharadwaj⁷, Abhay Gaidhane⁸, Zahiruddin Quazi^9♦

¹Program Manager - Stepping Stones, Datta Meghe Institute of Medical Sciences, Wardha, Maharashtra, India
²Data Analyst - Stepping Stones, Datta Meghe Institute of Medical Sciences, Wardha, Maharashtra, India
³Head, Division of Evidence Synthesis; Centre of Excellence School of Epidemiology and Public Health; & Department of Physiology Datta Meghe Institute of Medical Sciences (Deemed University), Email: nazli.786@rediffmail.com
⁴Professor Department of Medicine, Datta Meghe Institute of Medical Sciences; Wardha
⁵Professor, Department of Epidemiology, Indian Institute of Public Health Gandhinagar, Gujarat, India
⁶Associate Professor, Department of Epidemiology, Indian Institute of Public Health Gandhinagar, Gujarat, India
⁷Professor, Department of Community Medicine, AIIMS Jodhpur
⁸M.B.B.S. MD (Community Medicine), School of Epidemiology and Public Health, Datta Meghe Institute of Medical Sciences, Sawangi (M), Wardha.; Email: abhaygaidhane@gmail.com
⁹M.B.B.S. MD (Community Medicine), Ph.D. (Community Medicine), School of Epidemiology and Public Health, Datta Meghe Institute of Medical Sciences, Sawangi (M), Wardha.; Email: zahirquazi@gmail.com

^♦Corresponding author
M.B.B.S. MD (Community Medicine), Ph.D. (Community Medicine), School of Epidemiology and Public Health, Datta Meghe Institute of Medical Sciences, Sawangi (M), Wardha, India Email: zahirquazi@gmail.com

ABSTRACT

Background: Early Child Development is an important issue emphasized by government child health programs and mostly ignored by parents and community. India still lacks a comprehensive data source on early child development, especially cognitive and noncognitive development and particularly among children aged less than 3 years. Many mother-child stimulation programs provide evidences for promoting child development in developing countries. Stepping Stones program was one of such innovations implemented in two blocks of Rural Maharashtra. Methodology: A family with 18 months child was identified from Salai Kala village of Seloo block which had received 24 months intervention from Stepping Stones Program. This intervention was delivered by trained and certified Peer Mentor through 31 home visits as per the individualized visit calendar. Each home visit included delivery of 18 types of services as per the month of pregnancy or age of child including nutrition advice, guidance on exclusive breast feeding, complementary feeding, demonstration of activities on cognitive, socio-emotional, motor and language development. The child was assessed at 12 and 18 months of age using specified tools for the assessment of cognitive, socio-emotional, motor and language development, mother-child interactions and home environment. The scores of assessments at 12 and 18 months were compared and the difference was interpreted to see the improvement. Results: In this case study, child demonstrated improvements in all developmental outcomes including cognitive, socio-emotional, language and motor development at 18 months of age. Improvements were also found in home environment and mother-child interaction scores. Conclusion: This study outlines the effectiveness of customized parenting program on improvements in the developmental outcomes of children and provides an evidence for scalability of such intervention to more vulnerable populations.

Keywords: Early Child Development, child health program, parents and community, home visit, parenting

Medical Science, 2020, 24(103), 1302-1306

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