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This study examined associations among preschool attendance, home learning activities, stunting status, and early child development using data from the validation study of the East Asia-Pacific Early Child Development Scales (EAP-ECDS). Participants were children aged 3 to 5 years from Cambodia (n = 1178; 30% stunted), Mongolia (n = 1226; 11% stunted), Papua New Guinea (n = 1697; 50% stunted), and Vanuatu (n = 674; 44% stunted). Child development was directly assessed using the EAP-ECDS and children's preschool experiences and home learning activities were reported by parents. Preschool attendance, preschool duration, and home learning activities were positively related to child development for non-stunted and stunted children, demonstrating that stimulating interactions in the home environment and early childhood education serve as modifiable factors that can help to reduce the negative effects of stunting on children's cognitive and non-cognitive development, and highlighting the importance of "nurturing care" for the development of both non-stunted and stunted children.

Research Findings: This study examined the contributions of motor skills and executive function (EF) to early achievement. Participants were 7,797 children (3,889 girls) between 36 and 72 months of age from 6 countries in East Asia and the Pacific. Fine and gross motor skills, EF, language and literacy achievement, and mathematics achievement were evaluated using the East Asia-Pacific Early Child Development Scales, a tool that assesses child development in 7 domains. Children's caregivers provided demographic information. There were 3 salient findings. First, gross and fine motor skills predicted both language and literacy and mathematics achievement. Second, in general, fine motor skills contributed more to the prediction of early achievement than gross motor skills. However, there were no differences between the contributions of fine and gross motor skills to the prediction of early language and literacy in Papua New Guinea or early mathematics in Timor-Leste. Third, EF partially mediated the relation between both early achievement and gross and fine motor skills in the overall sample, Cambodia, and Timor-Leste and fully mediated the association of gross motor skills and early achievement in China, Mongolia, Papua New Guinea, and Vanuatu. Practice or Policy: Implications of the findings for early childhood education are discussed.

Research Findings: This study investigated the relationship between family socioeconomic status (SES) and children's early attainment, and the roles of preschool attendance and executive function (EF) in this association. Participants were 3,331 children (1,584 girls) ranging in age from 36 to 71 months from Cambodia, Mongolia, and Vanuatu. Children's language, literacy, and mathematics attainment and EF were assessed using the East Asia-Pacific Early Child Development Scales. Mothers reported on family demographics and children's preschool experience. Results indicated significant associations between SES and academic attainment in all three countries. Further analysis showed that preschool attendance and EF were significant mediators of SES- related disparities in attainment, but differed by country. Both served as parallel and sequential mediators in the associations between SES and performance in language, literacy, and mathematics in Mongolia. However, only preschool attendance mediated the association of SES with literacy attainment in Cambodia, and only EF mediated that with children's mathematics and language performance in Vanuatu. Although SES is substantially related with early achievement in these developing countries, our findings indicate that preschool attendance and EF may attenuate this relationship. Practice or Policy: Implications for the provision of early childhood education programs and public policy are discussed.

Abstract This study examined whether there were family SES-related gaps in early development and considered whether parental engagement in early learning activities at home served as a protective factor in low- and middle-income countries in East Asia and the Pacific using the validation data of the East Asia–Pacific Early Child Development Scales (EAP-ECDS). Participants were 7583 children (including 3772 girls), ranging in age from 36 to 59 months, and their mothers or fathers. Participants lived in six countries (Cambodia, China, Mongolia, Papua New Guinea, Timor-Leste and Vanuatu) in the Asia-Pacific region. SES was indexed by parental education, occupation and family wealth; engagement in learning activities was determined based on reports of mothers' and fathers' engagement in six typical cognitive and socio-emotional caregiving activities; and early child development was assessed using the EAP-ECDS. Results indicated the existence of SES gradients in early development in multiple domains in China, Mongolia, Papua New Guinea, Timor-Leste, and Vanuatu. In addition, maternal and paternal engagement were found to moderate the relationship between family SES and early child development in particular domains across countries, suggesting interventions that promote increased parental engagement with children at home could be effective in mitigating SES-related development gaps in low- and middle-income countries. Highlights • SES gradients exist in early development in multiple domains in China, Mongolia, Papua New Guinea, Timor-Leste, and Vanuatu. • Maternal and paternal engagement moderate the relationship between family SES and early child development across countries. • Interventions promoting parental engagement could be effective in mitigating SES-related development gaps in LMIC. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Mongolian populations are widely distributed geographically, showing abundant ethnic diversity with geographic and tribal differences., Aim: To infer the genetic substructure, admixture and ancient genetic sources of Mongolians together with Kazakhs., Subjects and Methods: We genotyped more than 690,000 genome-wide SNPs from 33 Mongolian and Chinese Kazakh individuals and compared these with both ancient and present-day Eurasian populations using Principal Component Analysis (PCA), ADMIXTURE, Refine -IBD, f statistics, qpWave and qpAdm ., Results: We found genetic substructures within Mongolians corresponding to Ölöd, Chahar, and Inner Mongolian clusters, which was consistent with tribe classifications. Mongolian and Kazakh groups derived about 6-40% of West Eurasian related ancestry, most likely from Bronze Age Steppe populations. The East Asian related ancestry in Mongolian and Kazakh groups was well represented by the Neolithic DevilsCave related nomadic lineage, comprising 42-64% of studied groups. We also detected 10-51% of Han Chinese related ancestry in Mongolian and Kazakh groups, especially in Inner Mongolians. The average admixture times for Inner Mongolian, Mongolian_Chahar, Mongolian_Ölöd and Chinese Kazakh were about 1381, 626, 635 and 632 years ago, respectively, with Han and French as the sources., Conclusion: The DevilsCave related ancestry was once widespread westwards covering a wide geographical range from Far East Russia to the Mongolia Plateau. The formation of present-day Mongolic and Turkic-speaking populations has also received genetic influence from agricultural expansion.