*Review* **Promoting Developmental Potential in Early Childhood: A Global Framework for Health and Education**

**Verónica Schiariti 1,\*, Rune J. Simeonsson 2,3 and Karen Hall <sup>2</sup>**


**Abstract:** In the early years of life, children's interactions with the physical and social environmentincluding families, schools and communities—play a defining role in developmental trajectories with long-term implications for their health, well-being and earning potential as they become adults. Importantly, failing to reach their developmental potential contributes to global cycles of poverty, inequality, and social exclusion. Guided by a rights-based approach, this narrative review synthesizes selected studies and global initiatives promoting early child development and proposes a universal intervention framework of child-environment interactions to optimize children's developmental functioning and trajectories.

**Keywords:** early child development; ICF; education; health; inequality; rights; functioning; potential; intervention; disability
