If a quarter of SA's toddlers‚ aged three to four‚ are failing to meet developmental milestones‚ what kind of citizens are we raising?Experts say it all depends on the interventions implemented along the way.New research published on Tuesday by Harvard University's TH Chan School of Public Health estimates that a third of toddlers between the ages of three and four in low- and middle-income countries fail to reach their development milestones. In SA‚ 579 900 - or 26% - of children in that age range scored low in Early Childhood Development Index (ECDI) tests‚ the report said.If interventions do not assist in developing the children’s skills‚ SA may find itself in a situation where the youth are unable to pass matric and equip themselves with employable skills.With the country's high youth unemployment rate and battling basic education system the scenario could spell doom.ECDI is a caregiver-reported index of 10 yes/no questions designed for children to assess four domains of development - literacy-numeracy‚ learning/cognition‚ physical health and socio-emotional development.The research estimates that 80.8-million of the roughly 240-million preschool-aged children in the world's 132 low- and middle-income countries‚ “fail to develop a core set of age-appropriate skills that allow them to maintain attention‚ understand and follow simple directions‚ communicate and get along with others‚ control aggression‚ and solve progressively complex problems”.Professor Hasina Ebrahim of the University of South Africa's early childhood education department says that number of children in SA with low ECDI scores may be higher than the research suggests as the country's databases are outdated.Ebrahim said that effective interventions can turn the situation around but that the quality of these [intervention] programmes needs greater systematic thought in SA."With the environments some children are born into it is not surprising that there are lags … by the time they are three or four there is nothing you can do for some of them."We know that there are a lot of children are at risk but [intervention] programmes are not monitored regularly to track child outcomes‚" she said.Ebrahim said the child support grant is one of the most effective interventions for supporting children in South Africa but that it is still not operating as intended with money being spent on households and not solely on the needs of the child.Ebrahim also said that early childhood development centres in the country are often not run by highly qualified practitioners and this impacts on quality."Access is there but quality needs to be strengthened in relation to the realities facing children‚” she said.Professor Elizabeth Henning of the University of Johannesburg's education faculty‚ said she remained sceptical of the research results because they are based on early childhood development milestones.“Milestones are important but differ from child to child‚” she said.Henning added that sometimes children develop more slowly than the average but that did not necessarily mean that they would not catch up.She also said that children knew certain things depending on their contexts and where they live and that tests like the ECDI does not always cater to such complexities. – TMG Digital ..