Early Social-Emotional and Cognitive Basis for Human Development Potential, and Improved Quality of Life

This presentation discusses the effects of social motivation on brain development in early childhood and the role of emotions on child development. Optimal nutrition and social-emotional development are the basic building blocks for higher level thinking abilities, human development and quality of life. The authors examine how to develop internationally comparable and feasible measures of child development. Then it will be possible to gather evidence to inform policy makers of the need for specific country policies and programs on this topic. This presentation was prepared for the IDB-PAHO Conference, "Towards Biological-based Indexes of Human Development Potential for Assessing the Quality of Life," held on May 25th, 2007.