Impacto de la desnutrición en el desarrollo psicomotor en niños de edad preescolar de los establecimientos pertenecientes a la Dirección de Educación Inicial de Cuenca 2010-2011

Abstract

OBJECTIVES: To find out the impact of the lack of nutrition in the psicomotor development of the children in the prescholar period from the kindergardens in Cuenca, trough antropometric measurements and aplication of the Denver Test. MATERIALS AND METHODS By means of a descriptive cross sectional in a universe of 559 boys and girls with a sample of 170 kids, it was seeked in a single group of study the correlation or association among weigth/height, height/age, and gender to identify the nutritional children situation and the changes in the psicomotor development in the areas of fine motor, thick motor performance, individual, social and language skills, considering them as effects associated to the nutritional situation. RESULTS A total of 170 boys and girls was reported in the study. 59,4 % female and 40,6 % male, with an average of age 4.4 yaers +/- 0.6. if was found a 12,9 % of lack of nutricion; the most affected groups was the one on the age of 5, from the 12.9 % of the children with lack of nutrition, the 10 % corresponded to the group with less psicomotor development and the 2,9 % to the group with normal psicomotor development. Aplying a no parametric correlation test, Rho Spearman, because the nature of the variable, the nutritional situation explains the 75,8 % of the psicomotor development. The correlation was higly significant (P < 0,0001) CONCLUSION It was found a highly significant association (correlation) between lack of nutrition and less psicomotor development.