A Report Card on Early Childhood Development

Abstract

Child well-being is multidimensional. This chapter summarizes the evidence on the health, nutrition, cognitive, language, socioemo-tional, and motor development of young children in Latin America and the Caribbean. These measures are important in their own right, and because of their implications for long-term productivity and growth in the region. Where possible, comparisons across countries, changes over time, and differences within countries, especially by wealth or parental education-so-called socioeconomic gradients- are made to provide an added dimension to the description, and a clearer picture of the state of well-being of the region's children.