Introduction to special issue on global child development studies

Abstract

As global child development research is taking off, this special issue provides a collection of recent research characterizing child development across the globe, validating behavioral and neuroimaging tools across diverse geographical setting and cultures, exploring relationships between risk and protective factors and diverse child outcomes, and testing novel avenues of innovative intervention. In particular, three prominent themes that emerge from this special issue are (a) research linking biology and behavior in the service of uncovering biological systems that are susceptible to experience and may mediate associations between experiences and long-term developmental outcomes in global child development research, (b) a movement towards inclusion of more detailed investigation of children's socio-emotional functions in global child development research, and (c) longitudinal studies of developmental outcomes across global settings. In this introduction we outline key themes and findings from the 25 articles included in the special issue.