Although the hypothesis of irreversibility of damage from malnutrition still is evaluated, the degree of malnutrition that causes psychomotor alterations is still unknown; hence the aim of this review: - Describe the effects of malnutrition on psychomotor development. For that, it was made a scan of articles published from 2007-2013, in Spanish, English and Portuguese, around the question: What are the effects of child malnutrition on psychomotor development? The results showed the effects on learning, psychomotor development, morphology and physiological changes, the implications for child growth and development, and the impact on cognition and behavior patterns. To this extent, the human being with energy and nutritional deficits associated with malnutrition may have clinical manifestations, characterized by alterations in morphology, physiology, growth and the development of body and nervous system.