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Parents’ involvement in early intervention (EI) services fosters positive developmental trajectories in young children. Although EI research on parenting skills has been abundant, fewer data are available on parents’ knowledge of normative child development. Sixty-seven mothers of children participating in a Midwestern city’s EI program completed the Knowledge of Infant Development Inventory. Compared with mothers in normative referent samples, mothers of children enrolled in EI reported significantly less knowledge of normative child development and were significantly more likely to underestimate the timing of normative developmental milestones. The race/ethnicity of mothers of children in EI was significantly related to their milestone accuracy scores even after the mothers’ education level was controlled. Implications of the findings are discussed within the context of providing EI services that are family centered. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on a study related to the importance of parental knowledge of child development in estimating risk of child maltreatment. Topics discussed include increase in the risk of physical and emotional injuries; importance of parental knowledge of child development, increase in the risk of child maltreatment, prevention of maltreatment; and mentions several risk factors of maltreatment including low maternal empathy and family role-reversal.

The article discusses a study which examined the association between developmental knowledge and mother-child play interactions. Topics covered include the benefits of parent-child play, the baseline data used in the study and the design and procedures utilized and implemented in the research. The milestones subscale that was used for the current study is also described.