Factors Affecting Development of Children at

The study aimed to determine the variables that characterize normal and ab-normal or questionable performance of Filipino children (n = 911) with his-tories of perinatal risk events (e.g. birth weight less than 2,500 grams, age of gestation less than 37 weeks, instrumental delivery) on the Metro-Manila Developmental Screening Test (MMDST), a restandardized Philippine ver-sion of the Denver Developmental Screening Test. Children's ages ranged between 2 weeks and 6XA years (53 % male, 47 % female). In addition to MMDST performance, data on 34 structural-situational variables were used in discriminant analysis. Thirteen variables with significant discriminant func-tion coefficients formed five clusters: a child-situational variable cluster, health variable cluster, mother variable cluster, socioeconomic variable cluster, and an age variable cluster. KEY WORDS: children at risk; developmental factors. The use of cumulative scores on clusters of prenatal, perinatal, postnatal, and early infancy factors are recommended by investigators as best predic-tors of later developmental outcomes among children rather than any of th