The major thrust of this proposal is the investigation of contributors to good and poor development in preschool children. For this purpose we will examine a population at risk for poor developmental outcome and mother-child problems: children born with physical handicaps. Prior research has established that, during the school years, such children often reveal social passivity, inhibition, language disorders, and IQ which is below expected levels. Work in this laboratory has documented, through standardized testing and observation, comparable problems in the first 2 years of life in affective expression, social initiation, attention focus, and cognitive-linguistic development. Although prior models suggested that maternal withdrawal and rejection with handicapped children contribute to poor child outcome, we documented that maternal interactive behavior with toddlers is likely to appear as a compensatory pattern in response to poor functioning in the child. Maternal patterns may then go on, in a transactional manner, to influence subsequent child development. This study will examine social, affective and cognitive components of competency in 42 physically (not mentally) handicapped and 45 normal preschool children who have been followed longitudinally since 9 months of age. We propose to continue following these children until age 5 years. In an effort to put together an integrated picture of several aspects of development in such children, we will examine many aspects of child and maternal functioning. These include the quality of play, maternal interactions, and children's responses to frustration (using videotaped observations of mother-child interaction), as well as evaluations for dental, language, learning and hearing problems (important contributory factors for our handicapped sample), and mothers' and teachers' ratings of child behavior problems. We plan to develop composite indicators of healthy functioning at several age points, and to determine continuity of functioning, as well as to investigate those prior factors important to outcome, employing the maternal and child observational and testing data mentioned above. For this purpose, it is necessary to examine longitudinal data, and children, who by the nature of their early insults, are likely to present with a wide range of affective, social and cognitive adaptations. This goal can be addressed economically in the proposed study because it builds on an ongoing longitudinal investigation, with subject recruitment concluded, procedures established, and with prior data collection, reduction, and analysis already completed.
| Allen, R; Wasserman, G A; Seidman, S (1990) Children with congenital anomalies: the preschool period. J Pediatr Psychol 15:327-45 |
| Wasserman, G A; Allen, R; Linares, L O (1988) Maternal interaction and language development in children with and without speech-related anomalies. J Commun Disord 21:319-31 |
| Wasserman, G A; Lennon, M C; Allen, R et al. (1987) Contributors to attachment in normal and physically handicapped infants. J Am Acad Child Adolesc Psychiatry 26:9-15 |
