Effects of maternal intelligence, marital status, income, and home environment on cognitive development of low birthweight infants

Objective: To examine direct and mediated effects of maternal IQ, marital s tatus, family income, and quality of the home environment on the cognitive development of low birthweight infants. Methods: Secondary analyses on a large dataset using hierarchical regressio n identified factors correlated with cognitive outcomes in children at 3 ye ars of age who were born at low birthweight. Results: Maternal IQ was a critical variable, because it was highly correla ted with child IQ and because maternal intelligence influenced patterns of relationships among other predictor variables including marital status, inc ome level, and home environment on child IQ. Analyses revealed that effects of these variables on child IQ interacted with maternal IQ. Conclusions: Early childhood intervention programs should target those low birthweight infants most at risk for impaired cognitive development. Childr en at greatest risk are those living with unmarried, low IQ mothers.