Predicting long-term developmental outcomes from maternal perceptions of infants and toddler’s behavior

The purpose of this study wos to examine the long-term developmental corre-lates of maternal perceptions of infant and toddler behavior. Maternal ratings of children’s social behavior and developmental progress were obtained when the children were 13 and 24 months of age, using the Maternal Perceptions Ques-tionnaire. These early perceptions measures were intercorrelated with follow-up measures of children’s developmental competence.and behavioral adjustment ot age 6. Maternal evaluations of child characteristics in the 2nd year predicted not only their own ratings of child behavioral adjustment but also teacher, ex-aminer, and laboratory performance measures of cognitive competence and social odiustment. Although predictive correlations were generally modest, maternal perceptions stoles showed meaningful patterns of relationships with later child chorocteristics, pointing to the desirability of further research on this topic. behavioral adjustment maternal infant longitudinal sample perceptions During the last decade, there has been a surge of interest in parents ’ perceptions and interpretations of their children’s behavior (Sigel, 1981). Parental cog&ions have been acknowledged as important components of parent-child relation-ships (Bell, 1979). Parental cognitions may influence children’s developmental outcomes through direct processes, such as disciplinary styles or teaching tech-niques, or indirectly through the manner in which the parent structures the child’s physical and social environment. Moreover, indexes of parental cogni-tion have gained acceptance as important tools for assessing children’s behav-This research was supported by NIMH grants MH28018 to J.E. Bates and MH38605 to S.L. Olson. The authors thank the families who participated and others whose help was essential i