Ejs. Sonugabarke et Mt. Goldfoot, THE EFFECT OF CHILD HYPERACTIVITY ON MOTHERS EXPECTATIONS FOR DEVELOPMENT, Child care health and development, 21(1), 1995, pp. 17-29
Mothers of hyperactive (M-Hyp) and control children (M-NHyp) estimated
the age at which their child and children normally would reach a numb
er of significant developmental milestones. M-Hyp and M-NHyp had simil
ar timetables for normal development while their judgements about thei
r owne child's development were different. M-Hyp saw their children as
delayed relative to normal development and M-NHyp saw theirs as advan
ced. This group difference spanned the social, communicative, cognitiv
e and self-care domains. The generality of this effect was particularl
y surprising as the two groups of children had similar IQ scores. A nu
mber of explanations for this are discussed, including the possibility
that this finding represents an important generalization of low expec
tations from the purely social to the communicative/cognitive domains.
The implications of this possibility for hyperactive children's devel
opment are discussed.