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 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.