The effect of child hyperactivity on mothers' expectations for development.
Mothers of hyperactive (M-Hyp) and control children (M-NHyp) estimated the age at which their child and children normally would reach a number of significant developmental milestones. M-Hyp and M-NHyp had similar timetables for normal development while their judgements about their own child's development were different. M-Hyp saw their children as delayed relative to normal development and M-NHyp saw theirs as advanced. This group differences spanned the social, communicative, cognitive and self-care domains. The generality of this effect was particularly surprising as the two groups of children had similar IQ scores. A number of explanations for this are discussed, including the possibility that this finding represents an important generalization of low expectations from the purely social to the communicative/cognitive domains. The implications of this possibility for hyperactive children's development are discussed.
Sonuga-Barke
E J
EJ
Department of Psychology, University of Southampton, UK.
Goldfoot
M T
MT
D001289:Attention Deficit Disorder with Hyperactivity / Q000523:psychology*; D002648:Child; D002657:Child Development; D002675:Child, Preschool; D003071:Cognition; D002658:Developmental Disabilities; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007360:Intelligence; D008297:Male; D009035:Mothers; D012648:Self Care