Giving China's youngest generation a head start

Home visit

"Have you missed me, Binying?" asked Wu Lumei, the little girl's "aunt", who arrived in December carrying a full workbag.

Binying lives with her grandparents who are often ill, her parents and 14-year-old brother. The family earns about 20,000 yuan ($3,122) a year from farm and construction work.

Wu, 35, a part-time village worker, lives near Binying's home in Dapo, one of Zhanyi's poorest areas. When she took a set of building blocks from her workbag, Binying was immediately interested and grabbed a cylinder and a cone.

Li sat beside her daughter and helped her to pile the blocks higher.

"Binying, what shape is this?" Wu asked, holding up a block. "It's a rectangle!"

She told Li: "You and her father should help Binying play with the blocks as often as possible. They can help her to learn about shapes and are good for improving manipulative ability."

Whenever she visited a family, Wu brought new age-appropriate toys and collected old toys, which were disinfected and given to other infants.

After helping Binying play with the toys, and giving instructions, Wu weighed and measured her.

"Good! 85 centimeters, and 12.1 kilograms!" she said, inputting the data into the app, developed by the Capital Institute of Pediatrics in Beijing. The app showed Binying's height and weight according to a range of reference intervals, based on previous growth data and her age in months.

Later, Wu questioned Li, entering her answers into the app. The assessment consisted of seven questions about the child's diet and parental interaction, such as "How many times have you accompanied your child's play in the past two weeks?"

After each answer, the app provided feedback, such as "Good, please keep it up," or a negative comment and detailed advice.

Finally, Wu gave Li a box of nutrition powder, containing 30 packs, enough for a month, reminding her to give Binying a pack every day.