Family factors in developmental delays in children under six years old

Development delay in children under 6 years old is prevalent not only in both developed and developing countries. It is alarming that the number of delayed children is increasing. It is obliging to find out the family factors that possibly affect developmental delays in children six years old and younger. The objectives of the study were the following: (1) Describe the characteristics of families of children with developmental delays. (2) Determine the factors that significantly relate with developmental delays when comparing families of children, with delays and without delays. The sample was composed of 52 delayed children and their families, and 52 normal children and their families who were purposively chosen. The data was collected from March to May 2011 with the approval of the Saint Louis University Research Ethics Committee. The Metro Manila Developmental Screening Test was used  to test child development. The Parent Behavior Checklist was used to assess  parenting behavior of mothers. A questionnaire was used to collect family and child factors. The results of analysis revealed that higher frequencies of delays occurred in children one (23.08%) and three (23.08%) years of age; first born or only child (36.54%), and in households with three children or less (32.69%). Families of delayed children are of low socio-economic status, whose mother predominantly scored low in all categories of parenting. It was also found out that more frequencies  of delays occurred in the fine motor adaptive sector (86.54%), followed by the language (69.23%), gross motor (38.46%) and personal-social (32.69%) sectors respectively. Results of the chi square test revealed that expectation parenting behavior is significantly associated to developmental delay in the gross-motor sector (p 0.005) in children under six years of age. Developmental delays in the gross motor sector in the three to less than six-year-olds are significantly associated with father's occupation (p 0.009) and expectation parenting behavior (p 0.022). Analysis of factors associated with developmental delays when comparing delayed and normal children revealed that family factors are not significantly associated with developmental delays. A sub-analysis of age groups however revealed that mother's occupation and developmental delays are significantly associated in the three to less that six-year-old age group (p 0.026). It is concluded that children with developmental delays belong to families with disadvantaged socioeconomic status whose mothers scored low in all subscales of parenting behaviors; and family characteristics, parenting behaviors of the mother and child characteristics are not significantly related to developmental delays  in children under six years old. Therefore, health workers should be more vigilant in identifying children with developmental delays regardless of family characteristics.

A Study of Adolescent Problem Behaviors and Parenting Behaviors / 신경정신의학

OBJECTIVES: The purpose of this study is to evaluate the problem behaviors of adolescents and to discriminate between parenting behaviors of problem behavior groups and those of non-problem behavior group. METHODS: The subjects of this study were 792 high school students in Seoul. We administered 'Parenting Behavior Inventory' and Korean version of Youth Self-Report(K-YSR) to the subjects in order to evaluate the parenting behaviors perceived by adolescents and the problem behaviors of adolescents. We analyzed the relationship between parenting behaviors and problem behaviors. We classified the subjects into problem behavior groups(internalizing group, externalizing group, internalizing-externalizing group) and a non-problem behavior(normal) group. We studied the differences of parenting behaviors among the groups. RESULTS: The results are as follows. 1) There were significant negative correlations between the positive parenting behaviors such as affection, reasoning, and monitoring and the problem behaviors of adolescents. By contrast, there were significant positive correlations between the negative parenting behaviors such as physical abuse, intrusiveness, over-expectation, neglect, and inconsistency and the problem behaviors of adolescents. 2) Adolescents of the internalizing group perceived significantly more parental abuse, intrusiveness, over-expectation, neglect, and inconsistency than those of normal group. Meanwhile, they perceived significantly less affection than normal adolescents. Adolescents of the externalizing group also perceived significantly more parental abuse, intrusiveness, over-expectation, neglect, and inconsistency than those of normal group. Also, they perceived significantly less monitoring than normal adolescents. 3) Adolescents of the internalizing-externalizing group perceived significantly more intrusiveness from both parents than those of either the internalizing or the externalizing groups. Adolescents of the internalizing-externalizing group perceived significantly less affection and more neglect from their mothers than those of the internalizing or the externalizing groups. In addition, adolescents of the internalizing-externalizing group perceived significantly more physical abuse from their fathers than those of the internalizing or the externalizing groups. CONCLUSION: Parenting behaviors such as abuse, intrusiveness, over-expectation, neglect, and inconsistency are associated with both internalizing and externalizing problems. In contrast, our results suggest that parenting behaviors such as affection, monitoring, and reasoning might decrease the various problem behaviors of adolescents.