Significant adversity impairs development in the first three years of life—and the more adversity a child faces, the greater the odds of a developmental delay. In fact, risk factors such as poverty, caregiver mental illness, child maltreatment, single parent, and low maternal education have a cumulative impact: children exposed to 6 or 7 of these risks face a 90-100% likelihood of having one or more delays in their cognitive, language, or emotional development. Source: Barth, et al. (2008)