The objective was to study the effect of malnutrition on over all adjustment as well as social, emotional, home and health adjustment and cognitive information processing in pre-adolescent children in Jaipur city. The hypotheses of the study were: (1) If there is severe malnutrition than there exists a likelihood of impaired cognitive information processing among pre-adolescents. (2) The existence of severe malnutrition is likely to lead to impaired overall adjustment among pre-adolescents. (3) The third hypothesis pertains to a statistical attempt to sort out the possible confounding effects of sex differential if any on the criterion measure of adjustment and cognitive test performance. The sex differential, as a natural dichotomy, may have certain intrinsic effects on tests and this must be ascertain.

200 students of age ranged 10-12 years from two different schools of Jaipur city were selected as a sample by quasi problastic sampling method.

Shamshad’s Human Adjustment Inventory, and Raven’s Progressive Matrices were used for data collection. ICMR norms for height and weight measurement were also used for data collection.

The findings of the study were: (1) The cognitive information processing of the malnourished group was significantly affected as compared to the well nourished group. (2) The over all adjustment of the malnourished group was poor in comparison to the well-nourished groups. (3) Severe malnutrition enhances the like hood of impaired cognitive performance on mental tests, like, the RPM. (4) Continued malnutrition of a severe degree is likely to lead impaired overall adjustment especially in the areas of health and social adjustment.