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LOW-INCOME ADOLESCENT MOTHERS' KNOWLEDGE ABOUT DOMAINS OF CHILD DEVELOPMENT
Catherine S. Tamis-LeMonda, Jacqueline Shannon, and Mark Spellmann
New York University
Over the past two decades, there has been a growing interest in understanding and describing the nature of parents' knowledge about child development. One reason for this growing interest is the notion that parents' knowledge about child development guides their interactions with children, thereby indirectly influencing children's development. Consequently, researchers engaged in preventive interventions have become increasingly interested in what parents do and do not know about child development, in an effort to educate less knowledgeable parents and to support sensitive parent-child interactions.
Adolescent mothers in particular have been shown to know less about children's development than older mothers, even when controlling for differences in socioeconomic factors.
Although studies indicate that adolescent mothers may lack knowledge about development, specific details about the nature and magnitude of their errors remain unclear. We sought to characterize the nature of adolescent mothers' knowledge about child development. We examined two aspects of mothers' knowledge: (1) the relative ordering of developmental milestones; and (2) the developmental timing of milestones across five domains of child development: cognition, language, motor, play, and social development. Findings contribute to theoretical models about the precise nature of parenting views and to interventions that aim to prepare parents for "what is to come."
Fifty-nine first-time adolescent mothers of 32 boys and 17 girls, who represented a first wave of participants in our Early Head Start research evaluation study, participated in this study (M age = 16.62, SD = 1.15). Ten mothers were pregnant, 33 had children between 1 and 12 months of age, and 16 mothers had children between 13 and 28 months of age. Participants were from diverse ethnic backgrounds. Child's gender, maternal ethnicity, and maternal age did not relate to maternal knowledge. In this group, child's age showed patterns inconsistent to mothers' knowledge. Mothers with older children were more accurate at estimating language milestones (r = .27, p < .05). Maternal knowledge in the other domains was unrelated to child age (rs range .12 to .22, p > .05). Given our limited sample size, it was not feasible to explore further how parenting experiences with children of different ages interact with knowledge of development.
Mothers were asked to complete an age checklist of children's abilities for five developmental domains: cognition (11 items), language (11 items), motor skill (11 items), social development (8 items), and play (11 items) (see Table 1). They were asked to estimate the ages (in months) at which the average child is first capable of performing each action within each of the five domains. Items on each of the five lists were obtained primarily from the Hawaii Early Learning Profile Checklist (Furno 1987) and the Bayley Scales of Infant Development, 2nd edition (Bayley 1993). To measure the accuracy of mothers' age estimates, we created a "developmental window" around each of the items from the five developmental scales and estimated whether mothers' responses fell within or outside the window.
Findings indicated that as a group, mothers were highly accurate in their ordering of developmental abilities (r's range .66 to .98, p <. 05). Mothers' knowledge about the ordering of play and social abilities was significantly weaker (range of Cohen's q = .699 to 1.505, p's < .01, two-tailed) than their knowledge of cognitive, language, and motor milestones.
To assess mothers' knowledge about the timing of abilities-that is, the ages at which children first exhibit each behavior-we calculated the percentages of mothers' estimates that were (1) within the age window, (2) underestimates (mothers predicted children achieve the ability at ages younger than norms), and (3) overestimates (mothers predicted children achieve the ability at ages older than norms). Mothers' age estimates fell within the developmental window between 24 and 35 percent of the time. Thus, mothers were less knowledgeable about precisely when developmental abilities emerge.
Across all domains, mothers were more likely to under- than to overestimate onsets of abilities (t's range = 4.19 to 8.15, p's < .001; see Table 2) and were more accurate at estimating age onsets for earlier milestones than for those occurring after 12 months of age (t's range 3.51 to 12.75, p's < .001). Figures 1a through 1e plot mothers' age estimates against the actual age onsets of the target milestones. Mothers' age estimates overlapped with empirical ages for early abilities, but the two lines increasingly diverged for later abilities.
In summary, the adolescent mothers at our Early Head Start site were generally knowledgeable about the ordering of developmental abilities but less aware of the timing of children's abilities. Mothers were better at estimating first-year abilities around cognitive, language, and motor development than play and social development. Mothers systematically underestimated the timing of later emerging abilities across all domains, expecting children to achieve most abilities within a short span of a few months, rather than appreciating the protracted course of children's developmental achievements. For example, in the language domain, mothers expected children to combine words into simple sentences and to include words of emotion in those sentences (for example, "boy sad") by about 17 months; in reality, such linguistic abilities do not emerge until after 30 months. The most compressed view of development occurred for social abilities; mothers expected many of these to occur within a two-week window.
These findings have implications for Early Head Start interventions with mothers. Lack of knowledge about development can lead to mothers' unrealistic expectations of children. In turn, this may lead to diminished efficacy in mothers, disappointment in children's abilities, or inappropriate parenting. Teaching adolescent parents about normative achievements across domains of development is important preparation for the task of parenting.
| Empirical Age of Milestone Onsets (in Months) |
Mothers'Age Estimates (in Months) |
||
|---|---|---|---|
| Cognitive Milestone Items | M | SD | |
| Turns head when he or she hears a sound. | 2 - 4 | 4.9 | 3.7 |
| Reaches for objects held in front of him or her. | 3 - 5 | 6.3 | 2.7 |
| Imitates simple actions like clapping and waving. | 7 - 11 | 7.7 | 3.1 |
| Looks at pictures in books or magazines. | 6 - 14 | 9.3 | 4.7 |
| Takes off a lid from a box and looks inside. | 8 - 13 | 8.8 | 3.2 |
| Puts small objects or toys in a container. | 11 - 16 | 10.1 | 3.8 |
| Finds objects in a "3 card monte game"-or any game where objects are hidden under cups or bowls that are then mixed up. |
12 - 16 | 16.4 | 8.6 |
| Builds a tower of 8 or more blocks. | 20 - 31 | 12.5 | 5.2 |
| Can pick out specific people and objects in photographs. | 24 - 28 | 11.4 | 5.6 |
| Copies a line with a crayon on paper. | 23 - 34 | 14.8 | 7.4 |
| Groups objects by color (red, blue, yellow). | 32 - 42 | 16.4 | 8.2 |
| Language Milestone Items | |||
| Looks around the room and then looks into the air and make "aaah, oooh" noises over and over. |
1 - 4 | 8.4 | 5.2 |
| Looks over to caretaker and responds to that person talking to them with sounds such as "gagaga, bababa." |
4 - 10 | 9 | 4.4 |
| Whines "mamama mama" when upset to ask to be picked up by mother or father. |
7 - 12 | 9.9 | 3.7 |
| Looks at a person, reaches for cup, and grunts "uhh uhh" to ask for a cup. |
8 - 12 | 10.8 | 5.2 |
| Looks at person leaving a room and says "bye-bye," imitating that person saying "bye-bye." |
9 - 13 | 10.6 | 3.2 |
| Looks at mother getting a bottle and says "ba ba," naming the bottle without mother saying anything about the bottle. |
11 - 16 | 10.8 | 3.6 |
| Sees a dog's ball and says "dog dog," meaning that the ball belongs to the dog. |
16 - 20 | 15.9 | 6.7 |
| Looks over to juice, reaches for juice, and says "more ju" to request juice. |
18 - 24 | 13.3 | 5.6 |
| Says "hat head" or something like that as mother leaves the shower with a towel on her head. |
20 - 28 | 16.7 | 8 |
| Says "baby down" or "baby fall down" to a picture of a baby down on the ground or floor, meaning that he/she really did see a baby fall down last week. |
24 - 34 | 17 | 7.8 |
| Looks at a picture of a boy crying, points to the picture, and says "boy sad" or "boy cry." |
30 - 36 | 17.8 | 7.7 |
| Motor Milestone Items | |||
| Supports own head upright with good control. | 1 - 3 | 5.7 | 2.9 |
| Uses arms to lift head and chest off crib. | 2 - 4 | 6.3 | 3.3 |
| Rolls over from back to stomach. | 5 - 7 | 5.1 | 2.3 |
| Sits without support with good balance. | 5 - 9 | 6.7 | 2.3 |
| Pulls himself or herself to stand up using furniture. | 6 - 10 | 8.2 | 2 |
| Crawls across the floor on hands and knees. | 7 - 10 | 6.7 | 1.7 |
| Walks alone while holding the wall or furniture. | 8 - 13 | 9.3 | 2.2 |
| Walks up stairs with help from an adult. | 14 - 19 | 12.4 | 5.2 |
| Climbs on and off furniture like a chair or couch. | 18 - 21 | 11 | 5.9 |
| Can run easily and with good coordination. | 18 - 25 | 16 | 8.2 |
| Gets both feet off the ground when jumping. | 22 - 30 | 14.2 | 7.4 |
| Social Milestone Items | |||
| Makes sounds in response to another person's voice. | 3 - 5 | 7.5 | 3.2 |
| Smiles at himself or herself in the mirror. | 5.5 - 8.5 | 8.9 | 4.3 |
| Becomes upset when caregiver leaves the room or home. | 6 - 9 | 8.5 | 3.9 |
| Plays simple social games like peek-a-boo. | 6 - 10 | 8.5 | 3.1 |
| Imitates or copies movements such as clapping or waving. | 9 - 12 | 8.2 | 2.6 |
| Looks at an object or person when an adult points | 9 - 14 | 8.5 | 3.8 |
| Shows interest in other children besides brothers or sisters. | 18 - 24 | 9.3 | 3.7 |
| Shows a desire to please mother or caregiver. | 24 - 36 | 9.9 | 5.1 |
| Play Milestone Items | |||
| Reaches for a small nesting cup, holds on to it, and looks at it. | 3 - 6 | 10.1 | 3.9 |
| Grasps a toy telephone, touches the buttons on it, and pushes one of the buttons. |
7 - 12 | 10 | 3.2 |
| Gets a toy teapot, look for its lid, and fits the lid on top. | 9 - 14 | 14.7 | 6.1 |
| Picks up a toy spoon, holds it in hand, and eats from spoon. | 11 - 15 | 10.7 | 4.6 |
| Finds a baby doll, holds it in arms, and kisses its face. | 12 - 16 | 11.6 | 4.7 |
| Puts a toy bowl on the floor, stirs in it, and scoops "pretend food" onto a toy plate. |
13 - 18 | 12.7 | 5.4 |
| Reaches for a baby doll, holds on to its hand, and makes it wave "bye-bye." |
15 - 24 | 13.3 | 6.1 |
| Uses a toy to stand for another toy-for example, picks up a small ball, puts it against the floor, and scrubs the floor. |
16 - 25 | 11.6 | 4.6 |
| Finds a stuffed bunny, places bunny in a toy car, and makes bunny drive away. |
17 - 26 | 13.9 | 6.7 |
| Holds out finger, stirs in a toy frying pan, and eats from finger. | 18 - 27 | 13.7 | 6 |
| Takes a skinny bottle, puts the bottle in the baby doll's hands, and makes the doll color. The child is pretending that the bottle is a crayon. |
20 - 30 | 15.8 | t6.9 |
| Developmental Domain | Underestimates | Overestimates | Paired t-test | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Mean % | SD | Mean % | SD | ||
| Cognitive | 40% | 0.21 | 13% | 0.12 | 8.15*** |
| Language | 37% | 0.23 | 16% | 0.12 | 5.55*** |
| Motor | 34% | 0.17 | 16% | 0.12 | 6.72*** |
| Social | 39% | 0.22 | 21% | 0.19 | 4.19*** |
| Play | 43% | 0.27 | 15% | 0.16 | 5.99*** |
| *** p < .001 | |||||
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