"FACTORS ASSOCIATED WITH COGNITIVEACHIEVEMENT IN LATE CHILDHOOD ANDADOLESCENCE: YOUNG LIVES COHORTSTUDY OF CHILDREN IN INDIA INTRODUCTION:Young lives are a long term international research project focussing on the nature ofchildhood poverty. It is commissioned by Department for International Development (DFID)to study the impact of poverty in low and middle income countries over the period of 15years. The aim was to ensure a comparative perspective that reflected a diversity of politicaland economic circumstances and a range of geographical, social and cultural contexts andcircumstances. The results thus derived helpsin determining the policy effectiveness andmoreover children are considered as the major element in the shaping and implementation ofpoverty reduction strategies. Young Lives was designed to study the impact of poverty on the development of child whichcan further hamper the economic development of any nation.It is a cohort study followingthe lives of approximately 12000 children in four low and middle income countries- Ethiopia,India, Peru and Vietnam – over 15 years. These countries have diverse socio-economics andpolitical characteristics. In this paper we are analysing the older cohort of round II conductedin IndiaOBJECTIVE: India is home to 1.2billion people of whom 30% are children. This vast country ischaracterised by stark disparities between regions and social groups related to wealth andconsumption, access to education and welfare programmes and mobility out of poverty. Childpoverty being one of the major reasons in low child cognition, tackling this problem has aglobal significance. Young Lives takes a multidimensional view of poverty, seeing it as complex, dynamic andmanifested primarily by diverse material disadvantages, susceptibility to risk and constrainton choice. Poverty is often linked to social exclusion and exacerbated by restricted access tobasic services, notably health, education and social protection. Childhood is major analyticfocus of the study and the children and their household are the key units of observations andsources of evidence. The study measures children’s experiences of poverty and its outcomesacross many domains of well-being and development, including the physical, the psycho- social and the cognitive. The study design recognizes that children’s lives are inseparablefrom the settings, institution, systems of relationship and cultural processes in which theirhealth, well-being, learning and development are embedded. DATA DESCRIPTION The sample in each of the four countries consists of two age groups: A younger cohort of2000 children who were aged between 6 and 18 months, and an older cohort of 1000 childrenaged between 7 to 8 years were surveyed in round 1 year 2002. A cohort study is one whichcollects information over time on a group of people who share a common characteristic. Itallows us to see how circumstances at earlier time point relate to later outcomes. A large scale household survey of all the children and their primary caregiver wasconducted. Apart from children, their peers, caregivers, teachers and communityrepresentatives were also interviewed. Data were not only drawn regarding their material andsocial circumstances but also on their perspectives on the lives and their aspiration for thefuture, set against their environmental and social realities of their communities. This surveyincludes all ages from early infancy to young adulthood which means that we are also able toexamine how children change over time, whether growing up in rural or urban areas, large or "