A Study On The Relationship Between The Rearing Status Of Infants And Young Children In Rural Areas And Early Childhood Development

With China’s entry into the ranks of "middle and upper income" countries,the rate of economic growth is gradually slowing down.If we want to successfully cross the"middle income trap" and enter the ranks of higher income,we must change the mode of economic growth from simply relying on factor input to that relying more on technological progress and innovation,through the improvement of human capital.The first three years is a critical period for the development of one’s life,and investments in human capital accumulation at this age will give the highest return.The brain during this period has experienced rapid development with strong plasticity,and the period is critical to the development of cognitive and social psychological skills.The impact on early development will continue until adulthood,affecting their lifelong achievements.Family nurery environment plays an important role in the early development of children,and children’s caregiver is the most important factor in the family nurturing environment.Wether the caregiver can give infants and young children safe,stable and healthy environment and positive communication with children,determine wether the children can reach their full potential.As a combination of family education,grandparents play an important role in the early development of infants and young children.In order to explore the current situation of early development of infants and young children in rural areas and the relationship between the early development of children and wether children were raised by grandparents,based on previous studies,this paper select 1010 children aged from 4 to 28 months from 106 villages of 45 towns and 9 counties in Yunnan,Hebei and Shaanxi province by stratified random sampling method.The data of cognition,language,movement and social emotion of infants and young children were tested by Bayley-III test.The nutritional status(hemoglobin content)of infants was measured by collecting fingertips.At the same time,the related data like basic characteristics of infants and young children and their family members were obtained through parental interviews.This paper use Stata 14.0 statistical software for data processing and statistical analysis,use the number of cases and percentage(%)to count data,and use χ2 test and T test for the comparison between groups.The independent variable of multiple linear regression analysis is wether the infants were raised by grandparents.The results of this paper are as follows:1.The proportion of infants raised by their grandparents is high,and the average proportion in Yunnan,Hebei and Shaanxi provinces is 22.97%,and among them the proportion in Shaanxi is the highest,30.36%.2.The early development delay of rural infants and young children is serious.The anemia rate of infants and young children is as high as 43.86%,the rate of cognitive delay is 35.45%,the rate of language delay is 54.66%,the rate of motor delay is 21.48%,and the rate of social emotional delay is 27.33%.3.The nutritional status,cognitive,language,motor and social emotional development of rural infants and young children are not significantly correlated with wether infants and young children were raised by grandparents,while the cognitive,language and motor development are significantly correlated with the time that mother take care of infants since they were born,but the nutritional status and social emotional have no significant correlation with the time.It indicates that the time that mother take care of infants since they were born is essential for the early development of infants and young children.4.Rural infants’ caregivers all lack the parenting behavior that is conducive to the growth of infants and young children,for example,playing games with children,singing songs,telling stories and reading books.The proportions for playing games and singing songs of parents are significantly higher than that of the grandparents.But there is no significant difference of proportion for telling stories and reading books between parents and grandparents,and both are low.For the above conclusions,this study proposes the following policy recommendations.Firstly,enhance the importance of early childhood development of the publicity.Secondly,encourage mothers to increase the care time for the infants and young children in the first three years through economic subsidies and other ways.Finally,input to the early development agencies and facilities for infants and young children to provide better services for rural early childhood development.