PRECURSORS OF RETARDATION IN CHILDREN WITH TEEN MOTHERS

University Of Notre Dame, Notre Dame IN

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Abstract

The goal of the proposed research is to understand the social and psychological factors that precipitate various school-related delays in children of teen mothers. Salient characteristics in adolescent mothers, subsequent to and following deliver, have identified and, in combination with infant and emergent child characteristics, used to predict development during the school years, thus setting the stage for predicting developmental delays during adolescence. Measures of maternal and child functioning for 100 dyads will be gathered when each child is 14 years of age. The selection of early predictor variables (risk factors) has been guided by our conceptual model of adolescent parenting; these include maternal cognitive readiness, socioemotional adjustment, parenting behaviors, and early child characteristics such as temperament and attachment status. The selection of mediator and outcome variables has been influenced by our interests in self- regulation, metacognitive theory, academic achievement, and socioemotional adjustment as the children proceed through childhood into adolescence. We will evaluate how the predictor variables are related to academic achievement, mental retardation, learning disabilities and behavior disorders, and whether children's socioemotional adjustment and metacognition (especially self-regulation) mediate the influence of the predictor variables on the outcome variables. We are also interested in documenting, predicting, and understanding the causes of "risky behaviors" during adolescence. Thus, all of the measures to be gathered at age 14 will be considered within the context of data already gathered during pregnancy, infancy, and childhood as part of previous grants. Continuity of functioning within maternal and child domains will be assessed and relationships across domains examined form cross-sectional as well as longitudinal perspectives. The central focus is on predicting children's academic and socioemotional adjustment at age 14 using new and already gathered maternal, child, and social-environmental information. Secondary interests lie in tracing maternal development and interrelating maternal and child developmental trajectories. The project's overall aim is to identify the factors that underlie major, and not well understood, child-related problems in the U.S.: The causes of developmental delays in children of teen mothers as they enter their adolescent years. Hierarchical linear modeling (HLM) will be used to study average intraindividual changes in the sample over time as well as interindividual differences in change. HLM enables us to assess both static and dynamic correlates of developmental trajectories as well as their interrelationships. The significance of the project lies in the attempt to unravel the "new morbidity" phenomenon in a representative sample of adolescent mothers and their children through the use of a multivariate, perspective, longitudinal design.