PERCEPTIONS OF PRESCHOOLERS VULNERABILITY BY MOTHERS WHO HAD DELIVERED PRETERM

Assessed mothers who did and did not identify their children as vulner able on a number of variables including perception of their child's be havior problems and their own sense of parental control. Children were also examined to determine their developmental abilities. Participant s included 50 preschoolers who were born prematurely, their mothers, a nd their medical care providers. The mothers' response to the Vulnerab le Child Scale was used to identify children as vulnerable and nonvuln erable. Mothers who perceived their children as vulnerable also rated them on the Child Behavior Checklist 2/3 as having more somatic proble ms and as being more aggressive, destructive, and poorly socialized. A dditionally, these mothers expressed a diminished sense of parental ef ficacy and less control of their child's behavior as measured by the P arental Locus of Control Scale. However, results from the McCarthy Sca les of Children's Abilities and the medical care provider's questionna ire revealed no differences between the groups of children. Overall fi ndings suggest preschoolers born prematurely whose mothers perceive th em as vulnerable are at risk for the Vulnerable Child Syndrome describ ed by Green and Solnit (1964).