Prediction of IQ and Language Skill from Perinatal Status, Child Performance, Family Characteristics, and Mother-Infant Interaction

Abstract

193 basically healthy working-class and middle-class mothers and their infants participated in a 4-year longitudinal study which focused on the relative potency of several clusters of variables for predictions of intellectual and language outcome during the preschool years. The major results were: (1) Measures of perinatal or infant physical status were extremely weak predictors of 4-year IQ or language. (2) Assessments of child performance were poor predictors prior to 24 months, but excellent predictors from 24 months on. (3) Assessments of mother-infant interaction and general environmental quality were among the best predictors at each age tested, and were as good as measures of child performance at 24 and 36 months in predicting IQ and language. (4) Measures of the family ecology (level of stress, social support, maternal education) and parent perception of the child, especially when assessed at birth, were strongly related to child IQ and language within a low-education subsample, but not among mothers with more than high school education. Patterns of prediction were similar for 48-month IQ and 36-month receptive language; predictions were notably weaker for 36-month expressive language.

Intuitive parenting: Aspects related to educational psychology

“…In another longitudinal study, Bornstein (1986) used path modeling to determine the relative contributions of maternal didactics and found that maternal didactics at 4 months contributed more strongly to productive vocabulary size in l-year-olds than the same maternal didactics at 12 months did to verbal intelligence in 4-year-olds. Similar findings have been published by Olson, Bates & Bayles (1984) as well as Bee, Barnard, Eyres, Gray, Hammond, Spietz, Snyder & Clark (1982).…”

Family administered neonatal activities: An exploratory method for the integration of parental perceptions and newborn behavior

“…Parental perceptions are presumed to govern the interactive behaviors of the parent with the infant. Research supports the suggested link between parental perceptions of the newborn's capacities, the consequent expectations derived from these perceptions, and the resulting parenting behaviors (Bee et al, 1982;Stern & Hildebrandt, 1986). We propose that the working model can be influenced postnatally in the newborn period by (1) the parents' capacity to observe their newborn, (2) the meaning that parents ascribe to their observations, and (3) their sensed competence or self-esteem as parents.…”

Keys to Developing Early Parent–Child Relationships

“…All four categories -baby's behavior, environment, parent-child interaction, and family stress levelshad separate correlations with developmental outcomes, including cognitive and language measures (Barnard & Eyres, 1979). However, the best predictors were the environment and parent-child interaction (Bee et al, 1982).…”