“Street Children” Research

The concept of ‘street child’ is a difficult one. It includes both homeless children and those who have homes to go to, but spend a lot of time working in urban environments. In fact, it also includes many, many other life contexts. However, it has been a convenient label to describe the poor children often seen unaccompanied in many of the cities of Latin America, Africa and Asia. It’s a term easily understood by the public and hence favored by charities that appeal to the public. However, possibly a more accurate term would simply be urban poor children.

Whether we refer to them as ‘street children’ or simply ‘urban poor children’ is to a large extent a gentile discussion for armchair sociologists. It makes precious little difference to the tens of millions of children worldwide trying to get through their days. Nevertheless, research is needed to inform professionals involved with street children and to combat the abundant stereotypes of street children (generally negative) and present the true situation, regarding the extreme poverty, mental illness, resilience etc. of this significant global demographic.

We have recently published two journal articles on the lives of street children. Most recently a review article in the Psychologist. This examined some of the strengths as well as weaknesses of development associated with street connectedness.

Our recent article in the Psychologist made the front cover. The photo shows a boy who works selling gum to motorists in Quito, Ecuador.  

The other article, published in the InternationalJournal of Mental Health and Addiction describes a study of former street children in Quito. This was research involving three students as research assistants in which we estimated levels of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). We found it to be shockingly high at around 60%. PTSD is not just a mental health concern, it also has significant effects on brain development of children. Thus potentially affecting the course of their whole lives and the success or failure of their struggles with poverty. In fact, we are working on a third journal article looking at the effects of street-connectedness and poverty on neuropsychological development. It appears that, at least in the context of Quito street children, there are particular delays in the development of social cognition skills as measured by Theory of Mind tasks. Such tasks measure the ability to understand the contents of other people's minds. The data seem to suggest therefore that rather than driving specific development, street connectedness in children may delay development of some of the highest cognitive processes.

Many 'street children' are simply working because their families are very poor. Here we see a shoe shine boy working in La Paz, Bolivia

However, on the other hand, studies in Brazil and Bolivia have found the opposite, that street children do indeed develop some skills better than conventionally educated children. This is an interesting and important topic and we intend to continue the line of investigation here in Ecuador.