The Study of Situation of Early Childhood Development in Thailand 2021

Abstract

The aims of this study was to study the situation of early childhood development in 2021. Moreover, there was compared early childhood development in 2017 by the regional and national levels. There were include child care behavior of the primary caretaker, behavior of using the DSPM manual of the primary caretakers and finding out the factors related to early childhood development. The sample were 5113 parents or family members should spend most of the day daily with the child and take care of the child for at least 6 months and early childhood at aged 9 months to 5 years 11 months 29 days. The multi-stage stratified sampling was randomized from 12 health regional across the country and excluding Bangkok. Data were collected by questionnaire, there include the growth assessments, oral health examinations and child development assessments with DENVER II. The results showed that Thai early childhood had 70.3% that appropriate development of all developmental aspects. While, classified by age group, there was found that Children aged 0-2 and 3-5 years had 77.2% and 63.2% was appropriate development of all aspects, in respectively. For the result, there was compared to the 2017, it was founded that the developmental situation of early childhood in Thailand tends to increase but is still lower than the national target of 85%. Furthermore, 61.3% of the primary caretakers received the DSPM manual, 37.6% of them had read and used the DSPM. According to the factors related to early childhood development, there was statistically significant by occupation of father, age at gestational of mother, first antenatal care before 12 weeks, mother's infection during pregnancy, age and sex of child, breastfeeding, telling stories to children, plaque in oral cavity of child and the behavior of using the DSPM manual of the primary caretakers. For recommendation, the public campaigns need to implementation for families, community and related agencies to create their knowledge and awareness on child development and convince the target to receive antenatal care before 12 weeks that useful to develop a healthy child clinic service system to be of standard quality. The units sectors in the area level should cooperate with relevant agencies to develop the potential of teachers and caregivers. In addition, all levels of units sectors was establish a system for collecting and analyzing early childhood development data come to effective monitoring and planning. Moreover, the information can be returned to the relevant agencies.