The Sustainable Development Goals mandate that by 2030, all children should have access to quality early child development opportunities, healthcare and pre-primary education. Yet validated measures of ECD in low and middle income countries (LMICs) are rare. To address this gap, a Systematic Review (SR) of measures available to profile the development of children between the ages of 0–5 years in LMICs was undertaken. Drawing on education, psychology and health databases, we identified reliable, valid or measures adapted for use in LMICs for either assessments of children’s development or their learning environments. The inclusion criteria were (1) peer reviewed papers published between January 2009 and May 2019; (2) assessment tools used to measure cognitive/language development or the early years or home environment in at least one LMIC; (3) report of the psychometric properties (validity and reliability) of the tool, and/or description of the cultural adaptability/translation process undertaken before applying it to a LMIC. Two hundred and forty-nine available records published in the last decade in peer-review journals and nine relevant systematic literature reviews were identified. Fifty-seven records were qualitatively synthesised based on their psychometric properties and cultural adaptation. Forty-three tools were reviewed utilising 12 criteria. Five elements of analysis present in Tables 2 and 3 (study, population tested, validity, reliability and cultural adaptability/translation) focused on the tools’ psychometric properties and previous application in LMICs. A further seven dimensions outlined in Tables 4 and 5 identified specific characteristics of the tools from target age, administration method, domains, battery, accessibility, language and country/institution. We suggest these 12 key considerations for the selection of measurement tools that are applicable to effectively assess ECD in LMICs.

可持续发展目标要求到 2030 年，所有儿童都应获得优质的儿童早期发展机会、医疗保健和学前教育。然而，在低收入和中等收入国家 (LMIC) 中经过验证的 ECD 措施很少见。为弥补这一差距，对中低收入国家 0-5 岁儿童发育情况的可用措施进行了系统审查 (SR)。利用教育、心理学和健康数据库，我们确定了可靠、有效或适用于中低收入国家用于评估儿童发展或其学习环境的措施。纳入标准为（1）2009年1月至2019年5月发表的同行评审论文；(2) 用于衡量至少一个中低收入国家的认知/语言发展或早年或家庭环境的评估工具；(3) 工具的心理测量特性（有效性和可靠性）的报告，和/或在将其应用于 LMIC 之前进行的文化适应性/翻译过程的描述。确定了过去十年在同行评审期刊上发表的 249 条可用记录和 9 条相关的系统文献综述。57 条记录根据其心理测量特性和文化适应性进行了定性合成。使用 12 个标准审查了 43 个工具。表 2 和表 3 中的五个分析要素（研究、人群测试、有效性、可靠性和文化适应性/翻译）侧重于工具的心理测量特性和以前在中低收入国家的应用。表 4 和表 5 中概述的另外七个维度从目标年龄、管理方法、领域、电池、可访问性、语言和国家/机构确定了工具的具体特征。我们建议在选择适用于有效评估中低收入国家 ECD 的测量工具时考虑这 12 个关键考虑因素。