This is an excerpt of the original article, which can be found on Sixth Tone. You can read the original article here.

Rural Chinese children have a significant delay in their cognitive development compared with their urban counterparts, researchers have found, which could potentially hinder the country’s economic development.

Of the 1,808 children aged 12 to 30 months old who were surveyed in rural counties of Shaanxi province, northwestern China, 57 percent scored below a certain threshold on an international infant mental development scale. The Rural Education Action Program (REAP), founded by Stanford University in California, in partnership with several Chinese institutions, published their findings earlier this month in The China Journal, a scholarly periodical.