Early Childhood Stimulating Environment Predicts Later Childhood Resilience in an Indian Longitudinal Birth Cohort Study

Abstract

Background: Human resilience is dynamic and generated through myriad interactions starting from early childhood. Resilience can improve quality of life and longevity. Objective: The current analysis evaluates childhood resilience at 9 years of age and its associations with concurrent cognition and early childhood factors, using longitudinal follow-up of a community birth cohort in Vellore, south India. Methods: Resilience was assessed using the Child and Youth Resilience Measure and cognition utilizing the Malin’s Intelligence Scale for Indian Children. Early childhood variables included growth stunting, maternal depression scores, home environment scores, and socio-economic status (SES) at 2 years of age. Statistical evaluation included bivariate analysis with further multi-variate regression for each resilience domain and the total resilience score. Findings: Out of 251 newborns recruited into the original birth cohort, 205 (81.7%) children were available for the 9-year follow-up. Mean (SD) scores in individual, caregiving, and context domains of resilience were 26.34 (3.2), 19.52 (1.6), and 20 (1.8) respectively. Individual resilience domain was associated with verbal cognition scores at 9 years of age (0.07, p = 0.019) and total home environment scores (0.16, p = 0.027) at 2 years of age, when adjusted for stunting, maternal depression, and SES. The total resilience score was associated only with concurrent verbal intelligence (0.08, p = 0.026) after adjustment with early childhood factors. Analysis of individual home environment factors showed that daily stimulation was associated with the individual domain of resilience. Conclusions: Follow-up of an Indian birth cohort showed that in addition to concurrent cognitive abilities, childhood resilience was related to early childhood stimulating home environment. Promoting optimal stimulating home environments in low-resource settings to nurture holistic childhood development including mental health is essential.