MDAT

Malawi Development Assessment Tool

A simple to use, adaptable tool used to assess brain
development in young children living in low-income
settings.

The Big Picture

250 million children under 5 are at risk of sub-optimal development, due to factors such as extreme poverty and stunting. Not only that but globally, 85% of children with disabilities are living in resource-poor settings (ECD Lancet Series, 2016).

The Global Strategy for Women’s, Children’s and Adolescent’s Health (2016-2030) outlines a number of strategies that need to be put in place in order to help these young children not just survive, but thrive.One of which is ‘ensuring that all children have access to good quality early-childhood development’. And that’s where the MDAT comes in.

A Tool for Assessing Child
Development Globally

The MDAT (Malawi Developmental Assessment Tool) was created through a series of studies by a team at the College of Medicine in Malawi (now Kamuzu University of Health Sciences (Dr Eric Umar, Dr Maggie Nyirenda, Dr Edward Mtitimila) as well as the University of Liverpool (Professor Gladstone, Prof Lancaster, Prof Smyth Dr Ashley Jones) with support from researchers at Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine and the Malawi Liverpool Wellcome Trust (Prof Van den Broek, Ms Kayira) and originally with first studies in Lungwena, Malawi, by the team at Tampere University (Prof Ashorn).

The global reach of MDAT

The Global Strategy for Women’s, Children’s and Adolescent Health (2016-2030) outlines a number of strategies that need to be put in place in order to help these young children not just survive, but thrive.

One of which is ‘ensuring that all children have access to good quality early-childhood development’. And that’s where the MDAT comes in.

The MDAT enables teams in low and middle-income settings around the world to measure the impact of interventions which may affect early child development in the first few years of life.

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