Kofi Marfo
Biographic Data
| ID | 1216289 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Kofi Marfo |
| GIVEN NAMES | Kofi |
| FAMILY NAME | Marfo |
| SIGNATURE | MARFO K |
| AFFILIATIONS | Aga Khan University Nairobi |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-5784-3231 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 16 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 17 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 16 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1987 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2024 |
| H-INDEX | 3 |
Caregiving experiences and practices
These findings point to the interplay of various factors affecting optimal caregiving for young children in an urban informal settlement with Kenyans and refugees. Integrated ECD interventions are needed for such a mixed population, especially those that strive to anchor along caregivers' social support system, co-designed together with community stakeholders, that ideally focus on parent skills training promoting nurturing care and economic empo…
Toward a globally inclusive knowledge base on adolescent development
Ongoing internal dialog on the limitations of Euro-American developmental science has opened up space to explore how best to work toward a knowledge base that is adequately representative of the values, cultures, epistemic traditions, and lived experiences of peoples, nations, and regions around the world. So far, recommendations for the advancement of a global developmental science have focused preponderantly on (1) methodological considerations…
Stakeholders' Perspectives of Enablers and Barriers to Successfully Implementing an Integrated Early Childhood Development Program in an Informal Urban Settlement in Kenya
Integrated early childhood development (ECD) programs boost child health and developmental outcomes. However, the factors contributing to the successful implementation of such programs in informal urban settlements are not well researched. We conducted 14 focus group discussions and 13 key informant interviews with 125 caregivers of children under the age of 5 years and stakeholders, exploring their views on enablers and barriers to implementing …
Health seeking behaviors and childcare patterns in an informal settlement of Nairobi, Kenya
Children in urban informal settlements experience high risks for poor health and development. Understanding health seeking behaviors and childcare patterns of caregivers in urban informal settlements is important for devising effective interventions. This study describes household characteristics and aspects of nurturing care among caregivers of children aged 0–2 years in Dagoretti informal settlement, Nairobi-Kenya. In this cross sectional study…
A community engagement approach for an integrated early childhood development intervention
Our experiences underscore that intervention research on ECD programmes in urban informal settlements requires a well-planned and custom-tailored community engagement model that is sensitive to the needs of each sub-group within the community to avoid unintentionally leaving anyone out
Supporting Child Development Through Parenting Interventions in Low- to Middle-Income Countries
Background: Over 250 million children in low- and middle-income countries are at risk of not achieving their fullest developmental potential due to co-occurring risks such as poor nutrition and inadequate learning opportunities. Early intervention programs integrating the aspects of nurturing care, that is, good health, adequate nutrition, safety and security, responsive caregiving, and learning opportunities, may ameliorate against the negative …
Actors Perceptions on Challenges and Opportunities to Improve Street Vended Local Foods in Urban Ghana
Street foods play an important role in the lives of urban residents in developing countries. Consequently, there has been a lot of research into the nutritional quality of street vended foods, and the safety and hygiene of these foods. Researchers in Ghana have focused not only on the safety and hygiene of street foods but also on the effectiveness of regulations of these foods. While these provide important knowledge base for policy and action, …
Prioritizing research for integrated implementation of early childhood development and maternal, newborn, child and adolescent health and nutrition platforms
BACKGROUND: Existing health and nutrition services present potential platforms for scaling up delivery of early childhood development (ECD) interventions within sensitive windows across the life course, especially in the first 1000 days from conception to age 2 years. However, there is insufficient knowledge on how to optimize implementation for such strategies in an integrated manner. In light of this knowledge gap, we aimed to systematically id…
Some Growth Points in African Child Development Research
We reflect on ways in which research presented in earlier chapters responds to challenges of generating an African child development field and identify additional issues calling for the field's attention. The chapters collectively display a variety of African contexts and reflexive evidence of the authors' African cultural roots. Connecting research with African audiences demands cooperative communication between educational practitioners and par…
Some Long-Standing and Emerging Research Lines in Africa
Early research on child development in Africa was dominated by expatriates and was primarily addressed to the topics of testing the cross-cultural validity of theories developed "in the West," and the search for universals. After a brief review of the outcome of that research, we propose two additional types of motivation that seem important to us as African researchers begin to take the lead in articulating research agendas for the study of chil…
Second-first language acquisition
In this study we investigated adopted Chinese girls' expressive English language outcomes in relation to their age at adoption, chronological age, length of exposure to English and developmental risk status at the time of adoption. Vocabulary and phrase utterance data on 318 girls were collected from the adoptive mothers using the Language Development Survey (LDS) (Achenbach & Rescorla, 2000). The girls, aged 18–35 months ( M =26·2 months, SD =4·…
Experimental Analysis of Question Wording in an Instrument Measuring Teachers’ Attitudes Toward Inclusive Education
An experimental study ( n = 288 general and special education teachers) examining the effects of altering the referent (“students with mild disabilities,” “students with severe disabilities,” or “students with disabilities”) on a four-item scale (Negative Effect of Inclusion) indicated that wording changes had little effect on the scale’s psychometric properties (e.g., factor pattern coefficients). Changes did result in a shift in the mean level …
Special needs adoption from China
Protecting the Forest or the People? Environmental Policies and Livelihoods in the Forest Margins of Southern Ghana
Correlates of maternal directiveness with children who are developmentally delayed
Interactions between 25 mothers and their children with developmental delays were correlated to determine the relationships between maternal directiveness and a) maternal behavior regarded as developmentally facilitative, b) maternal intrusiveness, and c) child developmental competence and behavioral engagement. The findings, many of which challenge common conceptions about the nature and role of maternal directiveness, are discussed in relation …
Childhood Disability in Developing Countries
Special needs adoption from China
Protecting the Forest or the People? Environmental Policies and Livelihoods in the Forest Margins of Southern Ghana
Toward a globally inclusive knowledge base on adolescent development
Ongoing internal dialog on the limitations of Euro-American developmental science has opened up space to explore how best to work toward a knowledge base that is adequately representative of the values, cultures, epistemic traditions, and lived experiences of peoples, nations, and regions around the world. So far, recommendations for the advancement of a global developmental science have focused preponderantly on (1) methodological considerations…
Childhood Disability in Developing Countries
Correlates of maternal directiveness with children who are developmentally delayed
Interactions between 25 mothers and their children with developmental delays were correlated to determine the relationships between maternal directiveness and a) maternal behavior regarded as developmentally facilitative, b) maternal intrusiveness, and c) child developmental competence and behavioral engagement. The findings, many of which challenge common conceptions about the nature and role of maternal directiveness, are discussed in relation …
Protecting the Forest or the People? Environmental Policies and Livelihoods in the Forest Margins of Southern Ghana
Experimental Analysis of Question Wording in an Instrument Measuring Teachers’ Attitudes Toward Inclusive Education
An experimental study ( n = 288 general and special education teachers) examining the effects of altering the referent (“students with mild disabilities,” “students with severe disabilities,” or “students with disabilities”) on a four-item scale (Negative Effect of Inclusion) indicated that wording changes had little effect on the scale’s psychometric properties (e.g., factor pattern coefficients). Changes did result in a shift in the mean level …
Special needs adoption from China
Second-first language acquisition
In this study we investigated adopted Chinese girls' expressive English language outcomes in relation to their age at adoption, chronological age, length of exposure to English and developmental risk status at the time of adoption. Vocabulary and phrase utterance data on 318 girls were collected from the adoptive mothers using the Language Development Survey (LDS) (Achenbach & Rescorla, 2000). The girls, aged 18–35 months ( M =26·2 months, SD =4·…
Some Growth Points in African Child Development Research
We reflect on ways in which research presented in earlier chapters responds to challenges of generating an African child development field and identify additional issues calling for the field's attention. The chapters collectively display a variety of African contexts and reflexive evidence of the authors' African cultural roots. Connecting research with African audiences demands cooperative communication between educational practitioners and par…
Some Long-Standing and Emerging Research Lines in Africa
Early research on child development in Africa was dominated by expatriates and was primarily addressed to the topics of testing the cross-cultural validity of theories developed "in the West," and the search for universals. After a brief review of the outcome of that research, we propose two additional types of motivation that seem important to us as African researchers begin to take the lead in articulating research agendas for the study of chil…
Prioritizing research for integrated implementation of early childhood development and maternal, newborn, child and adolescent health and nutrition platforms
BACKGROUND: Existing health and nutrition services present potential platforms for scaling up delivery of early childhood development (ECD) interventions within sensitive windows across the life course, especially in the first 1000 days from conception to age 2 years. However, there is insufficient knowledge on how to optimize implementation for such strategies in an integrated manner. In light of this knowledge gap, we aimed to systematically id…
Actors Perceptions on Challenges and Opportunities to Improve Street Vended Local Foods in Urban Ghana
Street foods play an important role in the lives of urban residents in developing countries. Consequently, there has been a lot of research into the nutritional quality of street vended foods, and the safety and hygiene of these foods. Researchers in Ghana have focused not only on the safety and hygiene of street foods but also on the effectiveness of regulations of these foods. While these provide important knowledge base for policy and action, …
Supporting Child Development Through Parenting Interventions in Low- to Middle-Income Countries
Background: Over 250 million children in low- and middle-income countries are at risk of not achieving their fullest developmental potential due to co-occurring risks such as poor nutrition and inadequate learning opportunities. Early intervention programs integrating the aspects of nurturing care, that is, good health, adequate nutrition, safety and security, responsive caregiving, and learning opportunities, may ameliorate against the negative …
Health seeking behaviors and childcare patterns in an informal settlement of Nairobi, Kenya
Children in urban informal settlements experience high risks for poor health and development. Understanding health seeking behaviors and childcare patterns of caregivers in urban informal settlements is important for devising effective interventions. This study describes household characteristics and aspects of nurturing care among caregivers of children aged 0–2 years in Dagoretti informal settlement, Nairobi-Kenya. In this cross sectional study…
A community engagement approach for an integrated early childhood development intervention
Our experiences underscore that intervention research on ECD programmes in urban informal settlements requires a well-planned and custom-tailored community engagement model that is sensitive to the needs of each sub-group within the community to avoid unintentionally leaving anyone out
Stakeholders' Perspectives of Enablers and Barriers to Successfully Implementing an Integrated Early Childhood Development Program in an Informal Urban Settlement in Kenya
Integrated early childhood development (ECD) programs boost child health and developmental outcomes. However, the factors contributing to the successful implementation of such programs in informal urban settlements are not well researched. We conducted 14 focus group discussions and 13 key informant interviews with 125 caregivers of children under the age of 5 years and stakeholders, exploring their views on enablers and barriers to implementing …
Caregiving experiences and practices
These findings point to the interplay of various factors affecting optimal caregiving for young children in an urban informal settlement with Kenyans and refugees. Integrated ECD interventions are needed for such a mixed population, especially those that strive to anchor along caregivers' social support system, co-designed together with community stakeholders, that ideally focus on parent skills training promoting nurturing care and economic empo…
Toward a globally inclusive knowledge base on adolescent development
Ongoing internal dialog on the limitations of Euro-American developmental science has opened up space to explore how best to work toward a knowledge base that is adequately representative of the values, cultures, epistemic traditions, and lived experiences of peoples, nations, and regions around the world. So far, recommendations for the advancement of a global developmental science have focused preponderantly on (1) methodological considerations…
Political science (10 works) · Psychology (10 works) · Developmental psychology (7 works) · Early Childhood Education and Development (6 works) · Poverty, Education, and Child Welfare (6 works) · Child Nutrition and Water Access (5 works) · Sociology (5 works) · Economic growth (4 works) · Family and Disability Support Research (4 works) · Medicine (4 works)