Environmental Effects on Early Childhood Development

About the author: Noah Hill is a master in English philology and literature at California University. Noah is currently working as one of the best writers at the medical research paper topics He also studies feminine psychology.

Children’s development during early childhood is one of the most significant processes of human life. In early years, a child is subjected to fundamental changes, but it also becomes very vulnerable to negative effects. The most severe negative effects occur in families living in poverty, separated families, families exposed to a high level of stress, and families in which a child is neglected. A positive environment in childhood defines development of an individual throughout adulthood. Children in early years improve vital characteristics such as intelligence, personality, behavioral patterns, and ability to acquire knowledge and develop themselves as adults. Numerous studies argue about close relationship between environmental effects on early childhood development and various environmental factors since a lot of children are deprived of a possibility to reach their full potential due to family’s financial situation, geographic position, ethnicity, religion, and other socio-economic factors.

Examples of environmental effects on early childhood development include marital status of caregivers, family status, neglectful, excessively strict, or changeable parenting, insufficient caregivers’ supervision, divorce, involuntary change of a place of living, ethnic, cultural, or social isolation, poverty, and exposure to extreme conditions, such as natural disasters. In addition, environmental factors relating to children’s communication with peers and access to early childcare can also influence their cognitive and physical development. For example, if children are raised in an environment that does not expose them to any form of stress or violent behavior, including family violence and street violence, they are more likely to have a normal development. Positive environment includes parental support, stable provision of care and continuing supervision. Parental support can aid the development of social skills, which is a significant indicator of a healthy mental state. Children that live in supportive environments, which provide love, security, and assistance, have a chance for more sustainable development. Establishing close interactions with parents and peers provide children with feelings of trust and security that are vital for children’s successful mental and health development.

Early childhood is an exceptionally sensitive period in the life of every individual. However, some children are more vulnerable in terms of biological factors while others suffer from the environmental ones. The brain, especially parts that are responsible for controlling emotions, stress, and attention, is affected by the interchange of children’s genetics and environment. Harsh conditions in early childhood and later development are connected through structural parts of the brain, especially the system responsible for responding to stress. Genetics does not govern personal traits completely, but rather comes into an interplay with environmental effects. The researchers support this idea. They claim that associations may not be causal – rather, they may reflect a correlation between child development and parental wealth, parental behavior, or genetic endowments. While children mature, environmental factors that define their development become more interconnected. In a safe and healthy environment, various effects contribute to each other influence and increase each other’s benefits. However, when a child is exposed to multiple negative factors, such as long-term family hardships, financial problems, poor care, or violent behavior, environment, and genetics may cause various negative physical and psychological health outcomes.

Experience of negative environmental effects during early childhood can serve as an indicator of potential later difficulties, but it does not mean that such outcomes are inevitable. There is a huge gap between individual responses to negative environmental factors among children. Thus, one cannot state that adverse factors lead to disadvantaged socio-economical, mental, and physical conditions of an individual.

Evidence suggests that children raised in disadvantaged conditions such as poverty, poor care, and neglect are more predisposed to various deficiencies as adults. Negative outcomes may include emotional, behavioral, social, and other difficulties such as psychological illnesses and delinquent activities. These problems, in turn, have a negative influence on a person and the society as a whole.

Experts consider poverty to be one of the most influential factors of children’s development. The two variables are believed to have a strong connection, which is even more vivid for children in poverty. For example, an increase of income will have a bigger effect on children from poor families than on children from the rich ones. Furthermore, in determining the relationship between poverty and childhood development, other factors should be considered, including family structure (marital status of parents, number of siblings and other relatives living together), educational level of caregivers, and their background. Family income has both a statistically and practically significant impact on early childhood development (children from newborns to 3 years) and that this impact is different depending on the family’s poverty status. However, such factor as a measure of parental intelligence may reduce the negative influence of poverty on a child. For children from both poor and richer families the effect of family income is approximately 73.5% as large as that for maternal intelligence. However, this impact is significantly lower if measured only for children that live in poverty. In this case, the effect is 9.3% higher than the effect of maternal intelligence. These findings indicate that although poverty is a very influential factor for early childhood development, its effect can be moderated by a high level of parental intelligence.

Recent studies suggest that the financial situation of the family has much more stronger impact on children’s potential achievements and ability development than measures of health and behavior. Furthermore, early childhood is believed to be the period during which family’s economic circumstances are the most significant. It has also been estimated that a financial factor has more effect on completing education by children from poor families than the rich ones.

As to particular consequences of low family income on the children’s development, economic, sociological, and psychological studies outline different ways how a disadvantaged financial situation of the household may impact children. From the economic perspective, the level of family income defines the amount of goods the household can obtain. Thus, richer families are more capable of buying or producing necessary things that may contribute to a healthier childhood development. These products may include nutritious food; advanced environments at homes that can improve learning; an advantageous geographic location; and care settings outside the house. From the point of view of psychological and sociologic studies, poverty may determine the quality of relationships inside the household. For example, an advantageous financial situation may increase parents’ mental well-being and paternal processes, such as the quality of parents-children communication. Studies indicate that parents who suffer from financial deficiencies tend to be more authoritarian and punitive and are less eager to provide their children with advanced learning environments at home as compared to parents with higher income. The lack of money and financial insecurity lead to stress and may have a negative impact on caregiver’s mental well-being, which is considered as one of the factors that contribute to neglect of children and non-supportive childrearing. Different types of psychological distress can have a profound negative impact on parents-children communication. Moreover, poverty and stresses associated with it increase the likelihood of divorce or separation, which in turn can have a profound impact on the children’s development.

Poverty combined with parental depression and family status has a multiplying effect on the child’s development. However, particular background aspects can considerably reduce the likelihood of children suffering from negative effects of poverty. Nevertheless, exposure to early childhood poverty and long-term poverty is strongly related to individual deficiencies, including intellectual delay.

Negative environment effects do not occur due to a single traumatic event, but rather due to a long-term routine exposure to them. The chronic exposure to maltreatment, poor parenting and other adversity rather than an individual occurrence of maltreatment that is most damaging to developmental health.” In contrast, the gap between effects of persistent poverty and short-term poverty, which lasts only until the age of three, are not considerably different. The researchers also estimate that exposure to poverty at nine months and age three only were also not significant. However, the gap between exposure to poverty at nine months only and long-term exposure throughout the entire early childhood is statistically substantial. Thus, it can be concluded that the effect of poverty during infancy has a much lower effect than exposure to long-term poverty. Negative outcomes of early poverty still persist, but have less influence than in cases when the family continues to live in poverty as the child matures. Along with the effect on cognitive development, poverty also has a significant relation to behavioral outcomes. However, both long-term and short-term poverties are efficacious.

Researchers and healthcare experts play a significant role in promoting children’s development. Since both biological and environmental factors are interconnected, children that are exposed to negative environmental effects are more likely to develop cognitive, behavioral, or emotional problems than children who do not experience such exposure. However, many interventions are currently aimed at reducing these negative effects. It is harder to address some factors than others with such interventions. For example, many children from poor and disadvantaged families suffer from the initial lack of access to interventions for development. Children that live in poverty are more likely to fail to finish schooling, which is the result of their decreased possibilities to attend and learn at school. Intense, sustained prevention programs targeting high-risk families around birth and early childhood underlines that time as a high-priority window for intervention.” Thus, there are more chances to aid children from poor families to achieve equal opportunities to begin education during the early stage of childhood when brains are subjected to the most fundamental changes and form the basis for their intellectual, social, and physical development.

Environmental effects on early childhood development include poverty, family and household status, as well as family’s ethnic and socio-economic background. The extent of influence of environmental factors is not easy to control. However, effects of these influences are moderated by such factors as genetic predisposition to environmental effects, parental intellectual level, and intensity of these effects, for example, the length of exposure to poverty. The latter factors should be considered when attempting to promote children’s positive development through various interventions. Initiatives aimed at augmenting family and environmental factors would decrease children’s vulnerability to negative outcomes. Focus on these factors can potentially decrease risks of children not achieving their full potential or, worse, attaining various emotional, intellectual, and behavioral deficiencies. Successful application of these factors in interventions that are aimed at reducing environmental effects can help children develop their skills, increase their ability to respond to stress, and establish healthy social relationships.