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Late effects of malnutrition on cognitive competence 1
Author(s) -
Das J.P.,
Soysa Priyani
Publication year - 1978
Publication title -
international journal of psychology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.75
H-Index - 62
eISSN - 1464-066X
pISSN - 0020-7594
DOI - 10.1080/00207597808246633
Subject(s) - malnutrition , marasmus , cognition , psychology , disadvantaged , attendance , kwashiorkor , cognitive development , intelligence quotient , developmental psychology , pediatrics , medicine , psychiatry , pathology , political science , law , economics , economic growth
Does an episode of malnutrition, leading to hospitalization, further depress the intellectual performance of children from the disadvantaged economic and social class? An attempt was made to answer this by first tracing a group of children in Colombo, Sri Lanka, who had been hospitalized for marasmus and kwashiorkor 6 to 7 years ago and comparing them on tests of cognitive functions with a group of children from their neighborhood, matched on age and sex. There were 42 index children and 42 controls in the study. Thirty‐three siblings of these index children were also compared with another group of 33 age and sex‐matched neighborhood children. The results showed little difference between the groups on nine tests of cognitive functions and a strong relationship between the child's years of attendance at school and the cognitive tests. It was concluded that as far as the cognitive functions measured by the present tests are concerned, an episode of severe malnutrition perhaps does not do any more harm than chronic undernutrition does to disadvataged children.