CIEE Khon Kaen Newsletter--2011--SP--No. 6

CIEE KHON KAEN SPRING 2011 NEWSLETTER III

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The Farang Times

Child development refers to the biological, psychological, and physical changes an individual goes through from infancy through adolescence. The first twelve years of life are crucial for social, language and fine/gross motor development, which lay the foundation for the cognitive abilities of children in the future. If families and health personnel are unaware of developmental milestones in children, health and learning delays can occur. For our final project, our group chose to focus on child development for children ages 0-6 in Ban Nong Khung Yai. We aimed to raise the awareness of child development among families and health personnel. Our research consisted of an initial assessment of the children and families in the village using the Denver Developmental Screening Test, an interpretation and analysis of the results, and an intervention discussing the results of our research and providing methods of stimulating child development to families.

On our first day in the village, we distributed a survey about basic demographic information and a questionnaire assessing the family’s knowledge of child development to the 30 families who came to participate. Afterwards, with

the help of Ajaan Wongsa and P’Jang, we assessed the development status of the children’s language, social, fine motor, and gross motor skills. To thank the families who participated, we gave each child a cup and a coloring book with crayons, both of which promote fine motor skills.

Using STATA, a statistical analysis software, we were able to analyze the data and determine correlations among the factors that affect child development and those who were delayed. Overall, we determined that 14 of the 30 children had at least one developmental delay. Of those delayed, 53% were female and 38.5% male. Another striking trend was among the group aged 13-36 months. Those children had the highest percentage of language, social, and gross motor delays at 71%. We believe this is due to the rapid developmental growth that occurs during this time. At 13 months a child is dependent on the primary caretaker in all aspects of life. Within the next two years of life the child begins to develop independence. If parents and caretakers are unaware of the stimulation that is essential during this time, the child is likely to develop delays.

Farang: a word meaning foreigner that we are lovingly referred to by the locals of Khon Kaen. This newsletter, the final one of the Spring 2011 semester, is a co"aboration between the eight Community Public Health students as we" as our program facilitator, Lindy Bunch. Please read on to learn more about how we spent the last portion of our semester. This newsletter covers our field practicum component of the semester, consisting of community-based research and implementation programming stemming %om that research. There were three main groups, covering the topics of child development, nutrition, and oral health.

In the first two semesters of offering the Community Public Health program at Khon Kaen University, the CPH students recorded their experience by pi(ybacking onto the Development and Globalization students’ newsletter. But, this semester’s newsletters are the first CPH production solely created by this semester’s eight CPH students.

Child Development Project Team


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CHILD DEVELOPMENT PROJECT CONT.

Lastly, of the children who are delayed, the majority are delayed in either language (30%) or social (23%). This is attributed to the lack of adult stimulation. In these two areas a child learns through role modeling and, if that stimulation is absent, delays occur. After determining trends, we presented our findings to the families of the village. We prepared a brochure and poster explaining the importance of child development, gave examples of ways to stimulate it, and listed developmental milestones for each age group. For each child, we put together a gift bag appropriate for each age group of toys and activities that stimulate the four areas of development. To conclude our intervention, each child received a certificate thanking him/her for participating in our research project.

We believe our efforts in promoting and raising awareness of child development among families and health personnel in the village were successful. We hope that the brochure and poster will be a constant reminder on the importance of fostering child development and that families have the knowledge and awareness of child development milestones.

Rebecca Lee, University of Minnesota, Health and We"ness majorMarcie Lee, University of Colorado at Boulder, Biology and Ethnic Studies major Manaswi Sangraula, George Washington University, Public Health

Through a translator, Manny, Marcie, and Becky talk about child developmental milestones in Ban Nong Kung Yai


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PLAYING WITH FOOD

For our final practicum project, we had the privilege of working with the village of Ban Nong Kung Yai, about forty minutes away from Khon Kaen. Throughout the past few months, we have been able to form a connection with the villagers here, so it felt great to be able to give back to them. It also felt great to put our knowledge we learned over the semester to use and be able to be hands-on with this project. One of the main concerns in this village was the prevalence of chronic diseases, such as type II diabetes and hypertension. The higher socio-economic status of the villagers and easy accessibility to highly processed foods add to this problem. With this in mind, we decided to focus on nutrition. In particular, we wanted to focus on preschool children and helping prevent the onset of chronic diseases. Our main objective of this project was to evaluate the current nutritional knowledge of village caretakers and to educate them about healthy eating practices. In preparation for this, we visited and had exchanges with the villagers and community leaders, researched nutritional issues in Thailand, and developed a questionnaire for the villagers to take. The questionnaire consisted of questions regarding nutritional knowledge of caretakers, eating habits of the children, and height and weight measurements for growth evaluation. There were a total of 30 participants in our survey. By using the weight and height measurements, the growth status of the children could be obtained. 24 (80.00%) were normal, 1 (3.33%) was quite thin, 2 (6.67%) were thin, 2 (6.67%) were overweight, and 1 (3.33%) was fat. The majority of the questions concerning nutritional knowledge were answered correctly. An example of a question that was answered incorrectly by almost 50% of caretakers was the following from our questionnaire: “Cutting vegetables into thin slices before cleaning decreases nutritive value,” which is true. Through our survey, we found the foods eaten most often by the kids were snacks, vegetables, fruits, drinking yogurt, plain milk, sweetened milk, and crackers. For our public health intervention workshop which was held in the village, we focused on questions frequently missed by caretakers, portion control, Thailand’s Nutritional Flag, this/that activity (comparing similar food items), sugar cube activity (showing visually how much sugar is found in drinks), examples of healthy snack options, and handed out fruit and vegetables coloring pages along with brochures for the caretakers. By doing these activities with villagers from Ban Nong Kung Yai, we hope that their knowledge of nutrition is increased.Overall, we hope we were able to improve general knowledge and community awareness regarding nutrition. We hope the villagers use the brochures as future reference and that the coloring pages will improve food recognition for the children. The village health volunteers seemed open and interested in our project which is good as they will be crucial in helping to continue to educate the villagers about nutrition. This project would not have been possible without the following people: CIEE Thailand staff, Ajaan Wongsa, PhD students from KKU Faculty of Public Health, and peer translators. Thank you for your guidance and for a great semester!

Amanda Ga"aher, University of Michigan, Neuroscience majorJe*ey Tran, University of Colorado at Boulder, Integrative Physiology


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Amanda and Jeff demonstrating proper portions

CPH Spring 2011 with vi"agers %om Ban Nong Kung Yai


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For the final field practicum, our group focused on oral health in Ban Nong Kung Yai. We became interested in this topic because we observed that a number of children had multiple dental caries (or cavities) in this village. A few of our main goals were to get children to brush their teeth two times a day for two minutes each, promote the reductions of dental caries and gingivitis in children (ages 0-6), spread knowledge of proper oral hygiene and the affects that poor oral hygiene can have on your health, inform parents of the adverse effects that poor oral hygiene can have on their children’s health, and lastly reduce the amount of sugar consumed in order to preserve teeth. The first day of our project was an assessment day to evaluate the oral status of children in the village ages 0-6 and determine how well they practice proper oral hygiene. First, we gave the caretakers a questionnaire to fill out in order to assess their knowledge on proper oral care. The next thing they filled out were a series of questions asking about the frequency that the child brushes their teeth, times of day they brush their teeth, and whether or not they have visited the dentist. Lastly, after watching a dentist perform oral exams on a few children, we got a chance to perform the exams ourselves, looking for caries and gingivitis. We used the data we found the first day to direct our project into a more specific direction. After we coded our data and looked at/ compared several statistics, we saw that

we needed to focus on carie reduction in the children by promoting several behaviors such as brushing everyday twice a day, brushing at night time rather than just the morning, eating less sugar, and visiting the dentist 2 times a year. On the second day, we presented what we found to the villagers and our discussion went as follows: First we summarized the important data gathered from assessment day, defined dental caries and gingivitis as well as identified the risk factors for each, gave important reasons to brush baby teeth, described the effects sugar has on teeth, emphasized the importance of nighttime brushing and proper oral hygiene practices for each age group, and led a demonstration on proper brushing techniques. We hope that the villagers will be able to use the oral health techniques that we taught them through our project in the future. We learned a lot from this project and it was really rewarding to come up with a project idea, a plan, gather data, and finally implement an intervention based on the data we found. In addition, it was great experience for us to carry out our own project. We want to thank everyone who helped make this possible!

Julie Maeuser, University of Colorado at Boulder, International AffairsKathryn Wolf, Bates Co"ege, Math majorRachel Stahl, University of Rochester, Health, Behavior and Society Major

ORAL HEALTH

Julie, Rachel, and Kathryn demonstrate proper brushing technique in the vi"age


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ORAL HEALTH

Council on International Educational Exchange

David Streckfuss - Resident [email protected]

Arunee Sriruksa - Assistant Resident [email protected]

Jintana Rattanakhemakorn - Language Director [email protected]

John Mark Belardo - Field Studies [email protected]

mailto:[email protected]








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CIEE Khon Kaen Newsletter--2011--SP--No. 6