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Article History

Received: 17 February 2026

Revised: 11 May 2026

Accepted: 24 May 2026

First Online: 15 June 2026

Declarations

Conflict of interest: The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.

Competing interests: The authors declare no competing interests.

Ethical approval and consent participate: Ethical consent was collected as part of the two projects that the samples were taken from. The study was conducted in accordance with the Declaration of Helsinki, the ESRC’s Framework for Research Ethics (ESRC, ), and the guidelines of the Indian Council for Medical Research (ICMR, ). The protocol of the MultiLiLa project was approved by the Ethics Committees of the University of Cambridge (RG83665), the Jawaharlal Nehru University, and the National Institute of Mental Health and Neurosciences. The protocol of the ASCI project was approved by the Ethics Committee of the University of Cambridge (2019–20/65). The project additionally obtained permission to approach schools from the State Minister of Education in Telangana (the state in which Hyderabad is located). Consent was given by the child (orally), as well as by the head teacher or principal of the participating schools. Many of the parents of disadvantaged children in India are semi-literate or illiterate and their communication with the school is scarce. We therefore ensured parental consent through the school principal and the children's teachers. The principal approached parents (mostly by phone) to ask them for consent.