It has been estimated that 3% of child-bearing women are intellectually limited mothers (ILMs). Literature is emerging from clinicians who deal with the consequences of inadequate childrearing by ILMs. The potential for an adequately nurturing environment supplied by an ILM is ill-defined as is the potential and risk for her child. There needs to be systematic investigation of the incidence and severity of conditions consequent to parenting by ILMs, a risk profile that can estimate the environmental characteristics associated with deleterious child outcomes and identification of characteristics of competent ILMs.
The specific aims are to learn: how characteristics of ILMs differ from ,intellectually normal mothers of the same SES, race, age and parity; how children of ILMs differ from the comparison group; which personal-ecological variables contribute the most predictive variance to child competence. Fifty ILMs (IQ 50-75) and 50 low SES mothers (IQ> 85) will be recruited prenatally over a six-month period. All subjects and their children will be monitored for two years to evaluate child outcome (development/ cognitive ability, social competence, nutrition, illness/injury). Potential predictive variables of child outcome were derived from literature and categorized in two clusters: maternal and family ecology. Qualitative, correlation/regression and ANOVA will describe the sample, their characteristic relationships and differences. This information will form a foundation for the development of scientific interventions that could benefit the ILM and her child.
