Behavior,Malnutrition,and Mental Development

Of 56 children 6 to 36 months of age tested in a mountain village in the Philippines, 16 were too sick to respond to the testing situation. An additional 15 with histories of severe malnutrition obtained very low scores on the Bayley Scale. The poor performance of malnourished children appears to be part of a larger pattern in which vigorous efforts are made to keep children from crying by giving them heavily sugared food, carrying them most of the time, and providing very little verbal stimulation. Furthermore, because the toddlers can get all they want by whimpering, they have little opportunity or need to acquire self-supporting verbal or manipulative skills. Finally, generally poor sanitation predisposes to a high prevalence of the diarrhea-malabsorption-malnutrition sequence, which exacerbates already existing dietary deficiencies.